Now that I've gotten the Horus Heresy Mechanicum: Taghmata Army List, I will be analyzing the rules and units to the best of my amateurish ability. Well, this serves as an updated version to the article on 1d4chan's Mechanicum: Taghmata (30k) tactics page so for better advice and more expert analysis, visit that page instead. I'm just updating the stuff they have yet to update. And if anyone wants to copy and paste my stuff over to 1d4chan, please feel free to do so, but as a word of warning, I'm an unreliable source and analyst, being new to the game. Fluff-wise...well, I spent years reading Ciaphas Cain and other Imperial Guard novels, as well as a good number of Horus Heresy novels, but tactics wise I'm a greenhorn. Anyway, let's get to it.
This Page is finally complete! My Servitors...no, Servo-automata have returned from leave, and I finally succeeded negotiations with my Tech-Priests Auxillia. My Battle-automata and Siege-automata have gone all Malifica on me, but somehow Ive managed to re-program them. The Forge World of Draconis IV might be efficient, and we took the time to rip off 1d4chan to craft a "high-quality" product. Well, judging from our failed imitations of plasma weapons from the Forge World of Ryza, I can't say that's true...
Why Play the Mechanicum?
One word. Robots.
The Mechanicum is filled with awesome robots and great looking models, and yet at the same time presents an extremely flexible force that you can tailor to your own needs and liking. Starting out with a Taghmata as the base, the new Mechanicum: Taghmata Army List also offers you two subtypes for your Mechanicum army, the robotic Legio Cybernetica (my personal favorite) and the tank-heavy Ordo Reductor. These subtypes function as Rites of War, and each has their limitations and bonuses. The specialized bonuses are often worth it, though, so don't be discouraged by the limitations. Want a whole army of cool, giant robots? Field a Legio Cybernetica army. Love tanks and artillery? The Ordo Reductor wants you, man! Want a little bit of both? Taghmata vanilla list is perfect for you! Blobs of zombie Tech-thralls shuffling toward objectives? Come, the Lacyraemara and Magos Lachrimallus want a word with you. You can essentially build a Mechanicum army based on any style you want!
Additionally, you have a wide range of Lords of War, including Mechanicum Indentured Knights - which as of this writing number up to over a dozen, including new Armiger Knight Moirax Talons and Acastus Knights (I won't be adding the Dominus Knights because, quite frankly, they suck), two massive Macro-Engines of the Centurio Ordinatus, as well as 3 Titans from the Titan Legions. If you really want to field your Titans or Ordinatus without worrying about the 25% point restriction on your Lords of War, you can use the optional Leviathan Force Organization Chart, which allows up to 3 Lords of War and a small Allied Detachment. So I could basically throw in a 1,075-point Ordinatus-Minoris Macro Engine Ordinatus Ulator as my main Leviathan and Warlord, and fill up the remaining 925 points with an allied Legio Cybernetica detachment (a Magos Dominus, 2 Castellax Battle-automata as Troops, 3 Vorax Battle-automata for Fast Attack and 1 Thanatar Siege-automata in the Heavy support slot for approximately 920 points) and still call it legal. Of course, I'll have trouble finding anyone who will agree to playing against such a list......
Also? Cool Robots.
They are also one of the cheapest armies to get into. It's possible to begin an army with a single Magos and two cohorts of 3 Thallax each. Or Adescularis Convenants if you prefer blobs. For a wee bit more, you could just purchase 4 Castellax with a Magos Dominus to build a Legio Cybernetica army. While capable of standing alone (and much cooler if done so), they can also be used as allies for Space Marine Legions.
Gameplay wise, our models are pretty tough. Even our basic Troops, the Thallax, have a toughness of 5 and 3 wounds. The Tech-thralls might have 1 wound and T3 but they have Feel No Pain and can be upgraded with carapace armor. Most of our units have high toughness (7 for most of the Battle-automata and 8 for the Siege-automata) and multiple wounds, but of course the downside is that they are so expensive in terms of points you can only take a few of them, making this a small, elite army of tough Monstrous Creatures with incredible firepower. Combat wise, their low initiative and few attacks make it hard to throw them into melee, but there are exceptions such as the fast and hard-hitting Vorax.
Also? Cool, Giant Robots!
In 40K, the Mechanicum has evolved into Cult Mechanicus...which pales in comparison to what we get here, but at least we get the Skitarii. Unfortunately, there are no 30K rules for Skitarii, and I believe the Road to Terra Podcast is working on beta rules for them. I'll update you more in a new post when I get more information. They still haven't fixed the errors I've pointed out to them on their Facebook page, so it might be a long time coming. Maybe they're waiting for the new Adeptus Mechanicus codex.
MECHANICUM WARLORD TRAITS
Standard Warlord Traits, you roll on the chart to choose one unless you're using a Special Character as your Warlord who already has his own pre-determined Warlord Trait.
1. Master of Mechanisms: Choose one unit of Monstrous Creatures or a single vehicle squadron with at least one AV 12 or higher in the same detachment, and they gain It Will Not Die. Personally, I think this is the best Warlord Trait, it makes your unit of several already tough Monstrous Creatures that much harder to kill.
2. Perfected Targeting: As long as your Warlord is alive, either one of his weapons, or a unit within 6" of him with the Heavy type can become Twin-linked during the shooting phase. Pretty good, particularly because your Mechanicum list is bound to have many heavy weapons.
3. Predictive Augury: The Warlord and the unit he joins gains Cognis...meaning they hit on 5+ when firing Overwatch. If you have Myrmidons, this becomes awesome.
4. The Death of Flesh: All units in the detachment have the Preferred Enemy (Infantry - all types) while within 3" of an objective. They really hate flesh, huh?
5. Dread Rites: The Warlord and his unit cause Fear and are immune to its effects, and they also have Adamantium Will. I guess it's good for a melee Archmagos, particularly a Malagra or perhaps a Lachrimallus with his blob of Tech-thralls.
6. Battlefield Analysis: Nominate a single piece of terrain in the enemy's deployment zone, and its cover save is reduced by 1. Given the variety of cover-reducing options Mechanicum has such as Enhanced Targeting Array, you can basically stack them and render your opponent's cover useless.
CYBERTHEURGY
Psychic powers for giant robots! Just when you thought a pure army of Battle-automata couldn't get any cheesier!
The Magos Dominus (or Archmagos Dominus) can skip their attack in the shooting phase to use a single power. In order to use it, the Cybertheurgist must successfully pass a Leadership test. If the test is passed, your robots get psychic buffs, if not...well...nothing happens...unless you roll a double '6' (12), in which case you must roll on the Cybertheurgy Mishap Table. The Mechanicum version of Perils of the Warp, if you will, except that it's applied to the targeted Battle-automata/Siege-automata instead of the Psyker...uh, Cybertheurgist.
CYBERTHEURGY MISHAP TABLE
1-3 Signal Corruption The model may only fire Snap Shots and fights with Weapon Skill 1 in assaults for the next game turn.
4-5 Corrosive Paradox The model suffers a single automatic wound with no saves of any kind possible. Ouch.
6 Malifica The Machine Spirit rebels and gains self-awareness! A la Skynet from Terminator. Well, the Battle-automata or Siege-automata is considered destroyed for the purpose of Victory points if relevant, and is no longer part of the controlling player's force. If part of a unit, he's split from that unit and placed out of coherency with it. He can still be used in the previously controlling player's turn, but will from now on move toward and shoot at the closest unit each turn, and then assault that same unit if able. Both sides may now target the Battle/Siege-automata if they want to. They say it got smart!
THE POWERS OF CYBERTHEURGY
Depending on the strength and difficulty of the power, a penalty may be imposed on the Leadership value of the model making the test.
Rite of Celerity, Ld Modifier 0: The chosen model gains +2 to his Initiative score.
- well...Castellax and Thantars don't need it as Primarches will still hit first, and the Marines won't do anything to them in combat. Could be great for Vorax, though, as they will hit at I6 and mop the floor with Marines before they have the chance to take a cheap shot at them. Cool.
Rite of Eternity, Ld Modifier 0: The chosen model immediately regains 1 Wound.
- Huh...Battlesmith is better, if you ask me, and more likely to go off. But if you're desperate to regain 2 wounds at one go (and make a troll face at your opponent's rage after he finally managed to put 2 wounds on your Thanatar after 30 attempts), why not use both Battlesmith and Rite of Eternity if your Magos has a Machinator Array?
Rite of Fury, Ld Modfier -1: The chosen model gains +2 attacks.
- Now this is what I call awesome. A Castellax on the charge will produce seven S6 AP2 attacks, including Hammer of Wrath. Combine that with Concussive, and that's incredible. Upgrade to Battle-automata power blades for eight S6 AP2 attacks with Rending (for those pesky AV14 vehicles) and watch your opponent weep.
Rite of Destruction, Ld Modifier -1: The chosen model may immediately fire twice with its shooting weapon in the same shooting phase, but he can't use his ranged weapons in the next shooting phase, including Overwatch.
- Pretty awesome, for double the rotor cannon (poisoned!) shots, double the Darkfire cannon shots, double the Mauler bolt cannon shots, and even two giant large blast plates with re-rolling successful cover saves from the Hellex plasma mortar. When you really need something to die, this is it!
Rite of Dread Castigation, Ld Modifier -2: This power can only be used against an enemy Cybernetica Cortex model, and is an attack rather than a buff. Basically, both the Cybertheurgist's player and the opponent roll a D6 (after the power is successfully cast), then add the Leadership value of the Cybertheurgist and the target model to the respective dice rolls. The targeted model suffers one automatic wound with no saves of any kind possible for each point that the attacker's total score exceeds that of the victim's total score. On the other hand, if the Rite of Dread Castigation incurs a roll on the Cybertheurgy Mishap table, don't bother rolling on it. The Corrosive Paradox result occurs automatically and your poor Magos takes a wound. Ouch.
- Pretty useful as Magos and especially Archmagos have a higher Leadership than Battle-automata, and scoring wounds without saves of any kind being allowed on enemy giant robots is pretty good because of their high toughness. A lucky roll will see you wipe out that pesky Thanatar in one shot.
Rite of Immolation, Ld Modifier -3: The poor robot self-destructs! BOOM! Successful use sees the model destroyed, and then place a Large Blast marker above it. All models under the marker suffer a hit with Strength value equal to the poor robot's Toughness and an AP equal to his armor save. On the other hand, if the power fails, the robot gets angry at you and automatically goes Malifica without needing to roll on the table (and you can't blame the poor chap for rebelling against you after you tried to sacrifice him for the Greater Good...uh, the Omnissiah, right?).
- Awesome if you pull this off as a Thanatar will basically wipe out and Instant Death a bunch of Space Marines or even Terminators that it got stuck in combat with at a S8 AP2 large blast. Even a Castellax would be great, a single one dealing S7 AP3 to wipe out an entire unit of Space Marines that stupidly charged him in combat, which makes the sacrifice of your 105 points worth it if you immolated 250+ points worth of an Assault squad.
MECHANICUM TAGHMATA WARGEAR & SPECIAL RULES
Being a Heresy era list, as 1d4chan puts it, we have some funky wargear that's not present in 40K. The Omnissiah probably likes his ancients better.
ASSAULT WEAPONS
Battle-automata Power Blades: AP2 Rending weapons that grant an extra attack since they are paired weapons. Plus a chance to Rend a vehicle if you get lucky with them dice rolls.
Breacher Charge: A special weapon for use in assault, swap all your normal attacks for a single attack which is a Blast (3") in base contact with the attacking model to cover the enemy, and no covering your friendly models! Roll to hit against the majority Weapon Skill of the enemy, but buildings, emplacements and stationary vehicles are hit automatically so don't roll for them, and deal a S8 AP2 hit with Wrecker. One use only though, and it actually scatters if you fail to hit.
Corposant Stave: Gives +1 strength and AP4, as well as Concussive and Haywire. Very useful and flexible against infantry and especially against vehicles.
Heavy Chainblade: For turning your Thallax into Guardsmen killers. Gives +2 strength and AP4 to Instant Death even Solar Auxillia, is easily massed and can even threaten vehicles.
Lascutter: A melee lascannon that is unwieldy, and can only make a single attack at WS1. Only useful against vehicles and buildings.
Paragon Blade: +1 Strength, AP2 and gives you the chance to score Instant Death on a To Wound roll of 6. Archmagos Prime exclusive, but unless he's a Malagra, he has better things to do rather than get locked up in melee. And 1d4chan advises using Chainfist instead of Paragon Blade for the Malagra because of his low Initiative and high Toughness. Okay.
Shock Chargers: Grants Concussive to all melee attacks, including Hammer of Wrath and Smash, to the dude equipped with it. But no additional attack granted because it's not counted as a weapon.
Siege Wrecker: Awesome weapon that grants S10 AP2 melee attacks with Concussive and Wrecker. Instant Death those damned Marines in melee!
SHOOTING WEAPONS
Archeotech Pistol: A 12" S6 AP3 Master-crafted pistol. Pricey, but good for mincing Marines.
Avenger Bolt Cannon: Uh, same as the Avenger Strike Fighter from 40K, 7 S6 AP 3 shots, the awesome Marine killer.
Conversion Beamer: Inflicts more damage the further away your target is, so good for a gunline if you want to keep your Magos in the backfield for the whole game. S6 AP- blast for up to 18" but gets better from there. S8 AP4 blast from 18" to 42", but what you want is the 42" to 72" S10 AP1 blast that you'll fire after sticking your Magos in the corner of the table and spamming blast plates into your enemy's deployment zone.
Graviton Weapons: Graviton Pulse rule where instead of rolling To Wound as per normal, your opponent rolls for each model caught in the blast, and he must roll equal or under their Strength on a D6 or suffer a wound - well, roll of '6' will always count as an automatic wound. They have Haywire, awesome to wreck vehicles, and Concussive, and leave the Blast marker in place after firing to turn it into difficult and dangerous terrain for the next turn. Good for hindering charging blobs' movement, even better to wreck vehicles as mentioned earlier. Sucks at wounding infantry and blobs though as you need a 4+ to wound even those T3 Guardsmen and 5+ to wound Marines. But let's be honest, we brought this for the Haywire, right? Comes in two flavors, the 18" Graviton gun with small Blast (3") and 36" Graviton cannon with Large Blast (5").
Graviton Imploder: Standard grav-weaponry at 18", salvo 4. Your usual To Wound = Target's Armor Save grav-guns. Finally, the Mechanicum gets some Terminator killing weapons.
Irridiation Projectors: Awesome template weapons with the Fleshbane Special Rule, that gives them cancer if they survive (Toughness reduced by 1 if they take an unsaved wound for the REST OF THE GAME thanks to Rad-phage). Comes in 3 flavors, the 6" Lucifex pistol for the Magos Reductor, the standard Rad/Irad-cleanser that works like a flamer and like the Lucifex does S2 AP5 but Fleshbane, and the incredible Irradiation engine that is Torrent and S4 AP3. Your radioactive Marine killer.
Lightning Gun: Guns that shoot lightning...kidding, it's a 18" laser weapon with S7 AP5 with Shred and Rending. Standard on your stock Thallax and Vorax, and pretty good in most cases.
Mechanicum Bolter Weaponry: Ripping off the Bolter weaponry of the Legiones Astartes, they are used for their high rate of fire. They have 3 types, the Maxima bolter that has a sucky range of 12" but 3 S4 AP5 shots, the enhanced heavy bolter...uh...Mauler bolt cannon that has 2/3 the range but fires 3 S6 AP3 Pinning shots, and the relatively long range Scyllax bolter that fires S4 AP4 at 30", but only has Rapid Fire. Someone tell the Skitarii Rangers that the Scyllax stole their Galvanic rifles.
Mechanicum Las & Melta Weapons: Guardsmen standard weapons. You all already know what the laspistol, multi-laser, lascannon, meltagun, multi-melta and melta cannon do, so I won't bother with them. Of interest is the las-lock and mitralocks used by the Adsecularis Tech-thralls...unlike the standard lasguns, the las-lock is an 18" S4 AP6 gun that fires once while the Mitralock trades range for an 8" shred attack. Can increase the number of attacks of both weapons to 2 with induction chargers. The inferno pistol fires at 6", S8 AP1 with Melta. Makes the Machinator Array useful in shooting if you've nothing to repair.
Phased Plasma-Fusil: 24" S6 AP3 salvo 2/3 plasma that doesn't get hot. Hooray. Anti-Marine weapon, and it helps that most of our dudes are Relentless so we get to fire 3 S6 AP3 shots regardless.
Phosphex Bombs & Medusa Shells: The Phosphex bomb is only 6" small Blast but putting it on the Medusa artillery turns it into 36" Ordnance Large Blast. Both have S5 AP2, Poisoned on a 3+, Crawling Fire which means you can move the blast marker up to 2" in any direction you want after placing it on the target to cover more models, and Lingering Death, which leaves the Blast marker on where you fired it for the rest of the game. It's then treated as dangerous terrain for all models with a Toughness value and open-topped vehicles. Your awesome poisonous naplam that sticks around to threaten dudes who aren't inside vehicles. Nasty and nice.
Photon Thruster Weapons: The Mechanicum version's of plasma weapons turned into dazzling laser beams with Lance and Blind. But as with the Imperium's plasma weapons, it Gets Hot. Worth burning your hand off to incinerate that annoying Terminator squad before they reach you, what with AP2 goodness, good range (48" and S6 for Photon thruster and 60" and S7 for Darkfire cannon) while doubling as anti-vehicle weaponry if you're desperate. The Photon gauntlet makes for a weaker and shorter range (12" and S5) but it pays to have one against Deep-Striking Terminators.
Rad Grenades & Rad Missiles: Uh...Rad Grenades count neither as assault or defensive grenades, but whoever is locked in assault with a unit equipped with them would have their Toughness penalty of -1, which allows them to get Instant Death more easily. Yay. As for Rad Missiles, it's 48", S4 AP3 small Blast with Fleshbane and Rad-phage, basically trading the Irradiation engine's torrent template for 48" and a small blast marker. Yay.
Rotor Cannon: A salvo 3/4 lasgun with AP6 instead of AP- (wonder if that makes a difference) at 30". The Vorax can take bio-corrosive rounds that halves the range but gains Poison (4+), which makes a lot of difference for S3 against Toughness 4 Marines and very tough Monstrous Creatures.
Volkite Weapons: This is the awesome weapon that found its way into the Tech-Priest Dominus's and Sydonian Dragoon's armory in 40K. They all have Deflagrate, which means every unsaved wound causes an automatic hit. Awesome! They come in five flavors, the Volkite serpenta with 10" S5 AP5 pistol rounds, the 15" Volkite charger that fires 2 S5 AP5 shots, the Volkite caliver that throws out 2 Heavy S6 AP5 shots at 30" and the Volkite culverin with a monstrous range of 45" and 4 Heavy S6 AP5 shots. Roll like a boss, and see a whole blob melt under Deflagrate wounds, killing twice as many models as the shots you put out!
WARGEAR
Abeyant: A special chariot to make your Magos/Archmagos look like a Necron Overlord on a Command Barge, it gives him an extra Wound, Move Through Cover, Very Bulky, Hardened Armor and It Will Not Die. Makes him a lot more resilient as Hardened Armor allows you to re-roll failed armor saves from template and blast weapons but reduces Charge, Sweeping Advance and Run moves by -1". Expensive at 25 points, but worth it if you don't want your Archmagos Dominus to die.
Atomantic Shielding: This is where the Kastelan robots stole their shields from. 5++ invulnerable save against shooting attacks and explosions, 6++ against melee. If the Battle-automata suffes a Reactor Blast explosion, add +1" to the radius of the blast caused. Sweet.
Augury Scanner: Nobody can Infiltrate within 18" of the holder, and gives Interceptor against enemies Deep Striking within 18". Only for Rapid Fire and Heavy weapons, though. Good for protecting your tanks' rear AV from Deep Striking melta squads.
Cognis-sigum: Gives both the augury scanner and Night Vision, and you can choose to have the holder sacrifice his shooting in exchange for a unit within 6" to gain 1 BS. Not allowed for Independent Characters or Super-heavies, though, so tough luck if you want to cheese with your Knight or Ordinatus engine.
Cybernetica Cortex: The Battle-automata's synthetic brain that turns them from mere battle servitors into Terminators. Since there is no such unit type as Battle-automata, this special rule is what defines them and sets them apart from non-robot units. Grants a whole lot of bonuses, including Fearless, Adamantium Will, Fire Protocols, Machine Creature, Cybernetic Resilience and Programmed Behavior.
- Fire Protocols: Allows the Battle-automata to fire up to 3 of its weapons once each in the Shooting phase, all against the same target. Awesome!
- Machine Creature: Makes sure your Castellax are never counted as scoring units, but they can still deny. Take note that this is only for Age of Darkness games - if you play them in a normal Warhammer 40K game, your Castellax can still score BUT they do not have Objective Secured even if they are taken as Troops in a Combined Arms Detachment.
- Cybernetic Resilience: Successful wounds scored by Poisoned and Fleshbane attacks must be re-rolled, Haywire attacks cause an additional wound on a D6 result of 6 against the model, which you have to roll separately, but you can save as per normal.
- Programmed Behavior: If you don't have a Magos Dominus or unit with a Cortex Controller within 12" of the robot, unless it is already locked in combat, the robot runs wild and does its own thing.
- - Methodical: They can't make Sweeping Advances or Run moves.
- - Target Priority: They must shoot all their weapons at the closest enemy, especially if there are enemy models within 12" and within line of sight.
- - Onslaught: If the enemy is within 12" during their Assault phase, the robot will charge the closest enemy unit if able, but he can only charge the same unit he fired at during the Shooting phase. And after consolidating combat, they must do so toward the nearest enemy model if one is present within 12". Make sure you don't have your Battle-automata locked up with tarpits in close combat or he'll be stuck there for the rest of your game.
Cortex Controller: A remote control for the Magos Dominus to direct their Battle-automata. Basically, any robot within 12" of the guy with a Cortex Controller is no longer subject to Programmed Behavior. So they'll listen to you until you accidentally order them to run out of range during your Shooting phase. Best, if your Battlesmith has one, he can heal your robots, so stick him in a unit of Castellax and watch as none of them die.
Cyber-familiar: Adds +1 to your invulnerable save to a maximum of 3++, and lets you re-roll failed characteristic tests except Leadership and Dangerous Terrain.
Cyber-occularis: Servo-skulls, or at least the 30K version. Jetpack infantry that are purchased by the Magos and deploy with him (at most 6" away) as part as his wargear, but afterward they can wander off on their own though they can't join other units and don't count as scoring or denial. They don't take up transport spots but must embark on a transport with the Magos. All models within 3" of them gain Inteceptor, and enemies within 12" of them reduce their cover saves by -1. They also have Stealth and Fearless, have BS3 and a twin-linked laspistol whcih means that they shoot better than a normal Guardsman (Veterans have it beat, though). 1d4chan suggests bubble wrapping them inside other units. Huh.
Djinn-skein (Warlord only): Allows the Archmagos Prime to nominate a single unit within 6" of them or any Cuber-occularis to gain +1 BS, Deep Striking units choosing to arrive within 6" of the Archmagos Prime do not scatter, and barrage weapons from the same detachment may use the Archmagos Prime and any Cyber-occularis he has to draw a line of sight from for their attacks, but direction of fire, range, etc. is of course drawn from the firing weapon. Nice combo with Cyber-occularis, huh?
Enhanced Targeting Array: Gives the Battle-automata +1 to BS and -1 to the cover saves of enemies he targets. Awesome. No excuses for missing those shots now, giant robots!
Infravisor: Gives Night Vision, but gets Initiative 1 when taking Blind tests. Luckily, it's not as if you've a high Initiative to begin with.
Lorica Thallax: Thallax armor that provides 4+ armor save and Feel No Pain (6+), but prevents them from making Sweeping Advances. Almost exactly the same as Skitarii war plate, except for the lack of Sweeping Advance. Oh well, still a good deal and they look really cool.
Machinator Array: Souped up version of the Servo-harness. The user gets +1 to his Toughness, Night Vision, an extra flamer and an inferno pistol that he can opt to either fire both during the Shooting phase, or one of them and another ranged weapon he has. Probably works for an extra Cybertheurgy and repair rolls too! Also provides 2 extra attacks per turn in melee using the +1 Strength and AP2 profile with Unwieldy, Shred and Armorbane. Battlesmiths can add +2 to their Repair roll result for keeping your battered tanks alive for a bit longer. For just 25 points, that's a lot of goodies!
Mechanicum Protectiva: The Emperor Protects! Or the Omnissiah, anyway. Gives your Magos a 4++ invulnerable save.
Nuncio-vox: Units don't scatter if they Deep Strike within 6" of a guy holding this. Barrage weapons also benefit by using the guy's line of sight, but make sure he's on the table at the start of the turn and outside a vehicle or it can't be used.
Rad Furnace: All models locked in combat with a guy equipped with a rad furnace suffer -1 to their Toughness value during combat, and the guy himself is immune to cancer as well as rad grenades. Also nerfs any Poison and Rad-phage weapon used against him - those weapons must roll a 6 in order to wound him.
Servo-arm: Same as 40K, adds +1 to their Repair roll result, and one additional attack during melee that's S8 AP2 and Unwieldy. A discount Machinator Array, if you will.
SPECIAL RULES
Battlesmith: Your Tech-Priest Enginseeer from Imperial Guard/Astra Militarum and I think Techmarine (sorry, I don't play Space Marines), which repairs your vehicles by restoring a lost hull point, repairing a destroyed weapon or mobilizing an Immobilized vehicle on a roll of 5. Repairing a destroyed weapon allows it to be fired in the following shooting phase, and the Battlesmith can't repair if they have Gone to Ground or are Falling Back. Battlesmiths with Cortex Controller may also restore a single lost wound to a Battle-automata (repair robots!!!!).
Djinn-sight: Our good old Thallax can reduce cover saves by -2 and Infiltrators cannot set up within 24" of Thallax units, regardless of line of sight. AWESOME. Well, for us, not the poor chaps who were turned into Thallax (they got surgically mutilated).
Fusillade Attack: Allows your model to fire two ranged weapons in the Shooting phase, but must target the same victim. Sweet. Take that, Tau Crisis Battlesuits!
Haywire: Do I even need to explain this? Takes off a hull point from a vehicle if you roll a 2-5 (in place of armor penetration rolls), penetrating hit on a roll of 6.
Lumbering Advance: If only it was Lumbering Behemoth...well, disallows the model from making Runs or Sweeping Advances.
Prisoned: The Ursarax's Volkite incinerator. A single small Blast S6 AP2 Instant Death attack that can only be used in close combat against Infantry, Jump Infantry or Jet Pack Infantry. Okay...
Reactor Blast: When a Battle-automata or Siege-automata dies, roll a D6. A 6 means it explodes and inflicts a S4 AP- hit on all models within D6", which goes up by 1" thanks to Atomantic Shielding.
Plasma Wave: Re-roll successful cover saves. Hah! Thought you were safe in cover? Think again!
Swift Strike: +1 Initiative on the turn it charges into close combat. Strike swiftly, vigil always!
Sunder: Re-roll failed Armor Penetration rolls.
The Paragon of Metal: Turns your Battle-automata into freaking Ultron. He can only take it if you run him solo, but he is no longer subject to Programmed Behavior, and gains It Will Not Die and Rampage. However, if you're unlucky enough to fail Cybertheurgy on this guy, he'll rebel and automatically go Malifica against you for screwing with his mind, so be warned. Well...that's why he's Ultron.
Wrecker: Re-roll failed Armor Penetration rolls against fortifications and immobile structures, and add +1 to result rolled on the Building Damage chart. You get to remove that terrain from play if this attack damages and destroys it. What a wreck.
VEHICLE RULES
Anbaric Claw: Vehicle crab claw that can be used once per player turn, triggered during the Assault phase or when ramming or being rammed by another vehicle. Automatically hits all units within 1" of the vehicle's main hull, including friends, so make sure to warn your allies to get out of the way first before using it. It does D6 S5 AP4 Rending hits, which is I10 if you're doing it at assault, but simultaneous if ramming. Pretty cool and discourages infantry from whacking your tank with melta bombs.
Armored Ceramite: Immune to Melta...well, at least to the extra D6 Armor Penetration roll, anyway.
Armored Cockpit (Flyers): Ignores Crew Shaken and Crew Stunned if you roll 4+.
Battle Servitor Control: Your flyer gets Tank Hunter. Wee!
Blessed Autosimulacra: Your vehicles get the weaker version of It Will Not Die, regaining a Hull Point on a roll of 6.
Explorator Augury Web: Gives your Macrocarid Explorator Scout, and as long as it's on the table, at the start of your turn, you can choose between Disruption Mode, which reduces your opponents' Reserve rolls by -1, or Relay Mode, which allows you to re-roll both your successful ro failed Reserve rolls if you want. Beware, it comes at a steep price of 50 points, and reduces your transport capacity by 8. No point spamming Macrocarid Explorators just to take this because these modes do not stack and you can only choose one per turn.
Flare or Chaff Launchers (Flyers): Tons of them in Imperial Armor, gives a 4++ invulnerable save against damage inflicted by missiles.
Flare Shield: Front-facing energy shield that reduces the strength of Template and Blast weapons by -2 and other shooting weapons by -1. Awesome. No effect on close combat attacks or Destroyer weapons, though, but this makes your vehicles virtually indestructible against shooting attacks, especially if you have a Battlesmith constantly repairing them. Needless to say, ABUSE IT!
Ground-tracking Auguries (Flyers): Grants Strafing Run.
Illum Flares (Flyers): Drops a single flare per turn, roll for scatter as you will with Bombs, and then leave the marker in place. Gives Night Vision for any unit shooting at an enemy within 12" of the flare marker. Can't abuse it even if you have Split Fire as only the models firing at the enemy within 12" of the flare marker gets the benefits. Why am I even explaining this when it's in Imperial Armor?
Infra-red Targeting (Flyers): Gives Night Vision.
Occular Augmetics: For Knights only. Gives Night Vision, and may re-roll results of 1 on the Vehicle Damage table and Destroyer Weapon Attack table for shooting attacks at a range of 12" or less. Only useful for the Knights Atropos, unless you know you're fighting at night...but still, at 10 points, is it worth it?
Ramjet Diffraction Grid: The opposite of the flare shield, it covers the sides and rear, reducing the Strength of shooting attacks aimed there by -1. But it nullifies the cover saves provided by Night Fighting because it's pretty bright and visible even at night. Well, you can't have them all.
Volkite Sentinels: Pintle-mounted Volkite charger that can be fired in addition to any other weapons the vehicle is carrying without penalty, and may target units separately from the vehicle's main armaments. Good news, especially if you're spamming Triaros Armored Conveyors. Look at them blobs melt!
RELICS OF THE DARK AGE OF TECHNOLOGY
Funnily enough, the Mechanicum: Taghmata Army List does not contain any information on relics. I wonder why. You can only find them in Horus Heresy Book IV: Conquest. Here are the Mechanicus exclusive relics.
Cortica Primus: Awesome relic that doubles as a Cortex Controller (but you already have one unless you're forcing your Magos Prime to be one) that grants the ability to cast Cybertheurgy spells on not one, but the ENTIRE unit of Battle-automata. On the other hand, if you roll a Mishap, your roll on the result table is modified by +1 for every additional model, so your unit of 3 Castellax will add +2. Extremely powerful, but it has its risks. A whole unit of Castellax with +2 attacks each, or able to fire their weapons twice, or regaining 1 wound for each Castellax in a single go! The ultimate Deathstar ever, unless they all turn Malifica on him......
Contagium Mechanica: Martian computer virus of the Omnissiah that infect and absolutely wrecks enemy vehicles! A 12" Haywire weapon that infects the targeted vehicle, and if it survives, it spreads to the virus to other vehicles. In subsequent shooting phases, each vehicle within 12" of the survivor as well as the survivor itself takes a Haywire hit from the weapon. Every vehicle that loses a Hull Point but survives becomes infected itself, and they continue spreading the virus everywhere until there are no more vehicles to destroy. Awesome.
MECHANICUM: TAGHMATA ARMY UNIT ANALYSIS
The vanilla army that uses pretty much everything and serves as a baseline for all Mechanicum lists. The most flexible of the lists, it provides great variety with no restrictions like the two subtypes, so you are free to tailor and build your army list any way you want. Myrmidons, blobs, a bunch of tanks, Triaros Armored Conveyor spam, 90% Battle/Siege-automata, Archmagos Prime Deathstar, it's your fancy.
HQ
Magos Prime: An Independent Character with Stubborn, Battlesmith and Precision Shot. Can be upgraded into an Archmagos Prime for 35 points for better stats, Relentless, and access to Archimandrite Techno-Arcana. He must take one Order of High Techno-Arcana, a trait so important the book actually lists it twice under his Special Rules (kidding it's just a typo...I think). Each Techno-Arcana basically serves as some sort of military Degree that will dictate your strategy and playstyle. As for the Magos Prime himself, he's extremely customizable, and since he is expensive you might as well splurge points on him to equip him with stuff to make him unkillable, like the Cyber-familiar to increase his invulnerable save, a Machinator array to increase his Toughness, and an Abeyant to add an extra wound as well as grant It Will Not Die. And he really Will Not fucking Die. Of course, how you equip him is also largely dependent on what High Techno-Arcana you give him, and since you can only take one each for your entire army (no spamming conversion beamer Ordinators, for example), you might want to choose wisely.
- Archimandrite (Archmagos Prime only): All your vehicles get It Will Not Die, and those already with Blessesd Autosimulcra gets upgraded to 5+. If he is your Warlord (and he should be), you get to add +1 to your Reserve rolls. If you're playing a Mech(anicum) list, you might want to highly consider this as he makes your vehicles, particularly the Flare shielded ones, nigh unkillable, and combos well with Deep Striking Thallax, a Macrocarid Explorator with Explorator Augury Web. More importantly, he gives your Flyers a higher chance to come onto the table and make them more survivable. The most supportive (Arch)Magos.
- Malagra: Has Preferred Enemy (Characters), Precision Strike, Monster Hunter and +1 to both WS and Attacks. Turns your Magos into a Mech-assassin (no, seriously) who wants to get up close and whack that annoying character to death in combat. Make sure he's properly equipped to survive whatever attacks the Character throws at him first, and he'll deliver a whole world of hurt in return.
- Myrmidax: Gains Fusillade Attack, which allows him to fire two weapons in one shooting turn, Hatred (Everything), Relentless and Lumbering Advance, and Precision Shots on 5+ instead of 6+. Grab a Myrmidon Secutor and convert him into your Magos Prime Myrmidax, and you don't even need the Archmagos upgrade to give him Relentless! Give him 2 Photon Thrusters to fire 48" S6 AP2 Lance shots from a safe distance (beware of Gets Hot! though but a high armor save should mitigate it) to deal terrible, terrible damage. The shootiest Magos.
- Ordinator: The artillery guy, he gains Armorbane (sweet!) and Wrecker for all his attacks, and once per game, can fire a Bombardment attack instead of shooting a weapon in the Shooting phase. A Large Blast, Ordnance D3 Armorbane and Wrecker pie plate with Pinning and unlimited range. If you're up against an Armored Ceramite list with flare shields, fire an Armorbane photon thruster at it and watch your opponent weep in disbelief as you kill it. Better yet if you fire an Armorbane conversion beamer at 42" range and farther. Bonus points if your opponent has a Building or structure at the far end of the table - take pot shots at it with your Wrecker+Armorbane conversion beamer and savor the tears. The Magos with the most firepower, especially against vehicles.
- Lachrimallus: The boss of Tech-thralls, who forces you to have at least one Adsecularis Covenant unit in your primary detachment if you take him. He gains Feel No Pain (5+), and turns your Tech-thralls into a recyclable Legion, so every time they die, roll a D6, and on a 5+, you receive an identical unit in your Ongoing Reserves...free! Good to take if you already have hordes of Tech-thralls and combos well with the Archimandrite to get them back onto the table from Reserves whenever they die. He's also the most resilient Magos Prime.
- Macrotek: He has his own model from Forge World! The lord of Enginseers, he re-rolls failed Battlesmith rolls, and can take Enginseer Tech-Priest Auxillia units as Troops choices and an extra Fortification unless the mission prohibits their use. The cheapest Magos, and is very useful in repairing Structures, Vehicles and even Battle-automata if you give him a Cortex Controller.
Magos Dominus: A Dependent Character, and your Primaris Psyker equivalent. The main guys to control our Battle-automata, he has a robot remote control...uh, Cortex Controller, and can cast Cybertheurgy. They gain Patris Cybernetica, which allows them to join a unit of Monstrous Creatures that have Cybernetica Cortex, turning them into a pseudo-Kastelan Robot Maniple from 40K. Whee! They are tougher, with 5+ Feel No Pain, and the same options as a Magos Prime, but 1d4chan advises keeping them cheap and upgraded for survivability to accompany your robots. A Machinator Array would be a good idea as it increases their Toughness AND allows you to repair your Castellax robots.
Secutarii Axiarch: Titan Guard has come to Horus Heresy! You can take the Secutarii Axiarch as a HQ option, but keep in mind that unless you also bring a Titan (probably Leviathan slot), all Secutarii and Titan Guard units can only be taken as non-compulsory units. Still pretty sweet if you want to bring them along, or have a Titan to field them alongside with. The Secutarii Axiarch starts off at 60 points, but you'll want to give him an arc lance and mag-inverter shield for Haywire (and to make him look cooler). Weirdly enough, you can't give him a galvanic caster, so while you can have a Hoplite Axiarch, you can't have a Peltast Axiarch. Not that it matters. You could of course stick to an arc pistol and arc maul (or radium pistol if you want to save points, considering the arc pistol is another 5 points), give him an omnispex or augury scanner, but he has the stats of Space Marine, with a power armor save even. His Titanshard armor gives him It Will Not Die, and he comes with a 6+ Feel No Pain that can be improved through one of his Secutarii Hazard Protocols, improving it to 5+++ not just for him but all Secutarii in his Detachment. Other protocols grants him and his Secutarii Move Through Cover, or you can choose to have a +1 bonus to rolls on the Vehicle Damage Table (though you'll need to roll 6s for your Haywire attacks for that to kick in), or you could have everyone get the Preferred Enemy (Infantry) special rule instead. Very nifty tricks, and still worth considering even if you don't have a Titan.
Unique Characters
Archmagos Draykavac: Freaking bastard from the evil Dark Mechanicum who abused my fellow Knights. House Atrax, if I recall. Grr...Gives all units Preferred Enemy (all Infantry) when they are within 3" of objectives, has a weird Liquifractor attack that liquifies targets in Assault and uses the High Techno-arcana (Stataraga) which goves Walkers, Super-heavy Walkers and Monstrous Creatures +1 to their charge distances and Sweeping Advance. Can also be taken as HQ for a Questoris Knight army (NOOOO!). Gameplay-wise, very good, fluff-wise, an evil bastard.
Archmagos Inar Satarael: A Mechanicum Deadnought who lost his body and almost died, only to come back to life as synthesized biomass and cerebral cortex (brain) inside a machine. He is now a Monstrous Creature with Toughness 6, almost a Castellex, 5 Wounds, Feel No Pain (5+) and a Repulsion Shield that protect him against S6 attacks that aren't Templates or Blasts. 4+ means the wound is negated while 6 reflects the shot at the firers and strikes them automatically. Nasty. No protection from Destroter weapons, though. As tough as he is, he only has a 3+ Armor save and no Eternal Warrior, but as afraid of death as he is, he even planned for that. His Emergency Teleport Protocol activates when he loses his last Wound, and after rolling a D6, he teleports on a 3+, denying your opponent a Victory Point, including for Slay the Warlord. Even better, he leaves a final "fuck you!" present, blowing up the spot he left. He also has Patris Cybernetica, so throw him into a unit of Battle-automata, turning them into close combat monsters. He also has the Warlord Trait Implacable Advance, so all friendly Taghmata units within 12" get to roll an additional D6 when taking Morale checks and use the 2 lowest, which is cool. Have cool weapons like a graviton imploder and a twin-linked Maxim bolter, plus a servo-arm. Beware, he costs almost as much as a Knight, but he is both an Archmagos Dominus and an Archmagos Archimandrite, and the only way of having both in your army.
Magos Reductor Calleb Decima: A Magos Reductor who has an axe to grind with the Traitors who shot down his spacecraft during the Isstvan III betrayal, and runs around taking revenge on them HERETICS! An Independent Character with Precision Shots, he isn't as accurate or good in melee as other Archmagos, with only a 5++ save but gains an extra Wound and Strength. Equipped with only a Master-crafted bolt pistol, he isn't exactly setting the world on fire with his shooting either. Why take him then? Well, for one thing he is the only Magos Reductor you can take in a vanilla Taghmata list, meaning you can take non-Thallax troops and any number of Battle-automata and Siege-automata as you want without restriction while reciving the Ordo Reductor buffs. His unit gets Walker in Ruin, which is essentially Move Through Cover and immunity to Pinning. He also has Master of Destruction, which gives him Sunder and +1 to vehicle damage and building damage tables for his attacks, or confers it to a Heavy or Ordnance weapon within 6" of him. As he can take a Macrocarid Explorator as a Dedicated Transport, you can give it that too! He also gets his Bodyguards of either Scyllax Guardian-automata or Tech-priest Auxillia Reductors that don't count toward FOC. He also has a Curse of Omnissiah spell that can only be used once per game but screams Instant Death to vehicles with 2D6 Heavy Haywire attacks. Also very viable in a proper Ordo Reductor list for his Macrocarid Explorator Dedicated Transport, his support abilities and make sure to upgrade his invulnerable save to 4++ with a Cyber-familiar and stick him in a Scyllax bodyguard unit to Instant Death Marines in melee!
- Decma Invictus: Upgrade time! Calleb gets promoted to Archmagos and gains Relentless and Hatred (Traitors) - understandably so, as I mentioned, he got screwed over by them in Isstvan III when they shot him down in orbit, and Eternal Warrior. He must be the Warlord and has the Warlord Trait Battlefield Analysis. On the other hand, he and his entire army must always make Sweeping Advances and cannot voluntarily Go to Ground. You win some, you lose some.
Anacharis Scoria: A new addition from Horus Heresy book 6: Retribution, this guy is the fallen master, the Xanophane Tyrant...never mind. Anyway, he was a dude who supposedly was imprisoned by the Archmagos he once served inside some prison-forge of Xana-Tisiphone, where he apparently went mad, and escaped from the disaster of the Xana Incursion...presumably killing all the rulers in a bloody coup and becoming the Xanophane Tyrant. Yeah. Anyway, he's a powerful dual-wielding Archmagos. He's another Cybernetica type HQ who specializes in having Battle-automata. He can take a single Arlatax Battle-automata as a pseudo-bodyguard, and this guy has Paragon of Metal and Rage special rules for free. Anacharis Scorcia himself wields an awesome Vodian scepter that is AP2 and has Entropic Destroyer, which means that any successful hit with this weapon inflicts D3 wounds automatically on the targeted unit or model. For vehicles with AV, it means a single hull point is lost per hit. So keep your tanks away from him! Even better, only invulnerable saves can be taken against these wounds, but Feel No Pain and It Will Not Die no longer works!
Anacharis can also cast another Cybertheurgy spell called Rite of the Beast, which has a modifier of -2. If successfully applied, it affects an enitre unit of models rather than a single model. All models in this unit can re-roll failed hits in assault and add +1 to their Initiative, move and charge distances! In other words, your Battle-automata become beasts! WOOHOO! The downside, unfortunately is that after the power's effect ends, you need to roll D6 for each surviving model in the unit, and if you roll a 1, the model suffers a wound with no save of any kind possible. Ouch. Still beastly. Anyway, Anacharis buffs your Cybernetica more if he is your Warlord (and he must be your Warlord if you take him in your Primary Detachment), with the trait Forbidden Protocols allowing Battle-automata to make Sweeping Advances and Run moves, and non-Paragon of Metal models outside the cortex controller range must move toward nearest non-Flyer enemies, and must make charges and Sweeping Advance moves if able to do so. Anacharis can also take his own unique Abeyant at 40 points, which gives him +1 Wound, +1 Attack, Move Through Cover, Very Bulky, Hardened Armor, It Will Not Die and a photon thruster (to allow him to thrust...heh). So yeah, it's an upgraded and more expensive version of the normal Abeyant, just gives him an extra attack and photon thruster in comparison. So totally worth it.
ELITES
Tech-Priest Auxillia: Comes in three flavors, depending on the Techno-Arcana you choose: Enginseer, which is your standard Imperial Guard Tech-Priest Enginseer that repairs stuff, Lacyraemarta, which are your Tech-thrall masters and overseers, and Reductor who go around wrecking tanks with their bare hands...uh, servo-arms. They can take Triaros Armored Conveyor as a Dedicated Transport and herd around 4 Servo-automata, which you can increase to 8, and while doing so, add a 2nd Adept to the same unit. One can be promoted to a Magos Auxillia for 20 points, just so you get better stats and more Wounds.
- Enginseer gives +1 to Battlesmith rolls and a servo-arm, and Servo-automata become Support where each additional servo-armed Servo-automata improves the roll by a further 1+, to a maximum of...well, a roll of '1' always fail so if you're bringing them purely for support, stick to the stock 4.
- Lacyraemarta gives your Adepts and as long as they are alive, their Servo-automata Feel No Pain (5+). Friendly Adsecularis units within 6" also get +1 to their Feel No Pain rolls as long as the Adepts are alive. Nice. Combine with a Magos Lachrimallus for maximum hilarity.
- Reductor reduces vehicles to smoldering wrecks by conferring Tank Hunter and Sunder to your servo-armed Adepts and their Servo-automata. Adepts can swap out their servo-arms for either a conversion beamer or graviton beamer for 25 points each. That's actually not bad!
Domitar Class Battle-automata maniple: A giant robot that excels in melee with his WS4 (but has BS3), has a missile launcher that fires krak and Ignis-frag missiles (48" S5 AP6 small Blast that Ignores Cover), which can be upgraded with flak missiles for 5 points if you really want to shoot that plane down...in which you're wasting 180 points. What you want this guy for is his Graviton Hammer, which deals 3 S10 AP2 Concussive and Wrecker attacks in melee (4 on the charge). It also forces your opponents to make Disordered Charge against it, which is sweet, and has Crusader if he's within range of a cortex controller. Make sure to purchase frag grenades to ensure it gets that extra Charge attack, and while it rips apart other Monstrous Creatures with astonishing ease, it falters against tarpits. You can take one with Paragon of Metal if you wish, or up to 5 of them in a single unit.
Myrmidon Secutors: 3 shooty and close-combat dudes with power axes and 2 weapons, which you can maximize with your Fusillade Attack and BS5. Awesome. Take a Triaros Armored Conveyor as their Dedicated Transport to get them within range as even with 2 weapons firing at the same time, their longest-range weapon is only 24".
- Their aforementioned longest-range weapon is the phased plasma-fusil at 24". 1d4chan advises that you don't take it because it is essentially the same as a Mauler bolt cannon without Pinning, which you already have on the Triaros Armored Conveyor they're riding on, and you might as well get Castellax Battle-automatas instead. In fact, the Thallax Cohort gets it for cheaper too, at half the price. They say it's better to get lots of Castellax if you want S6 AP3 shots. However, I think they forget that a unit of 3 Secutors armed with 6 phased plasma-fusils costs around 240 points, and they fire an overwhelming 18 number of S6 AP3 shots at BS5 (thanks to Relentless), whereas two Castellax Battle-automata with Enhanced Targeting Array can only fire 6 shots at BS5 for the same cost. So uh...in terms of dakka per points value, I think the Myrmidon Secutors have the Castellax beat (unless you want to count the weaker boltguns on the Castellax). Additionally, you can only take 1 phase plasma-fusil per 3 Thallax , which means you'll only have 6 S6 AP3 shots per 275 points (300 if you upgrade with Destructor or 285 with Empyrite) and 4 S7 AP5 shots, so it's not as if you can spam AP3 shots there either. Of course, I'm an amateur, so trust 1d4chan over me.
- According to 1d4chan, another weapon that should be dropped faster than a bad Harem anime starring a bland protagonist (and I'm sick of watching those so I can relate) is the Maxim bolter. It costs the same as a Volkite charger, but is weaker by 1 Strength, has less range by 3", and while it fires 3 shots, you'll have better luck getting more wounds with the Volkite charger thanks to its higher strength and Deflagrate.
- Graviton guns are good as the amount of Haywire shots they spew is enough to destroy vehicle, even an Imperial Knight who somehow failed all his Ion Shield saves (or you were smart enough to shoot at him from another direction). For 210 points, that's a pretty good deal, especially if you glance a similarly costed Land Raider to death. Well, it goes up to 350 points with a Triaros Armored Conveyor though, but by the time they blow your truck up, you would have popped 2 Land Raiders and a Knight - enough to earn their points back twice over. As a bonus, Haywire nullifies the damned Armored Ceramite everyone's been spamming in 30K.
- Irrad Cleansers are a strong choice because of Fleshbane and Rad-phage templates, but you might as well bring Myrmidon Destructors with their Irradiation Engines with Torrent and AP3, so...take them instead.
- Volkite chargers...as with Irrad Cleansers, you might want to bring Myrmidon Destructors with Volkite culverins instead as they do twice the number of shots at 3 times the range, and at a higher strength to boot. If you want dakka, the phased plasma-fusil is a better choice with more shots, higher Strength and lower AP.
TROOPS
Adesecularis Covenant: Your blob of Tech-thralls! Comes in squads of 10, and can go up to 20, all for the super-cheap price of 3 per model! This makes them the cheapest unit in 30K, and perhaps even 40K where only the Ork Grots are cheaper by a decimal point! They are armed with las-locks, which they can trade for a shorter-range Mitralock shotgun that gains Shred. They make excellent hordes that can excel in close combat for their points if you give them heavy chainblades. Of course, this means they lose the ability to shoot, but at BS2, who cares? They make excellent tarpits or campers, and are pretty hard to remove especially if you give them upgrades. Can also take a Triaros Armored Conveyor as a Dedicated Transport now to ferry them to the nearest Special Snowflake or Gargantuan/Monstrous Creature.
- Rite of Pure Thought turns your 20-men horde into an awesome tarpit that will leave your opponent raging when his Gargantuan Creature or Special Snowflake is stuck in combat with your Fearless blob for 5 turns. They can't fire Overwatch or make Sweeping Advances, but who cares? The idea is to get them stuck in combat for as long as possible! An auto-include.
- Weapons wise, the las-lock has longer range but the Mitralock has shred. The heavy chainblades buffs their strength up to 6, so that T4 Tactical Marine squad is going to shudder at charging into a 20-men blob armed with chainsaws.
- As with any excellent Tarpit, it'll be a good idea to make them more durable. Carapace Armor improves their Armor save, and Revenant Alchemistry enhances their Feel No Pain to 5+ even if they get Slow and Purposeful in return. You also get Hatred, and can't Overwatch anyway if you took Rite of Pure Thought, plus with the Triaros Armored Conveyor Running isn't an issue. Getting stronger in melee is just a bonus though!
- If you prefer shooting, giving them induction chargers will upgrade both las-locks and Mitralocks into 2-shot assault weapons, so increased dakka for a BS2 unit. 1d4chan advises against it.
- Attach a Lacyraemarta Tech-Priest Auxillia to them for a 4+ Feel No Pain, and watch your opponent rage as your Tech-thralls keep coming back to life even after losing a Wound.
- If you want a horde-style army packed with zombie Tech-thralls, then you can place 120 models on the table. 1d4chan says Solar Auxillia will serve better if you want pure numbers as you can have 3 Auxillia Lasrifle Sections of 20 men each, each 100 points, so maybe about 360 models on the table for 1,800 points? On the other hand, the Adsecularis Convenants will only cost you 145x6 = 870 points with full upgrades, leaving you points to throw in other stuff like Thanatar Siege-automatas and a beefed up Magos Lachrimallus with Lacyraemarta Tech-Priests Auxillia.
Thallax Cohort: Ordo Reductor shock troops that spread out to the rest of the Mechanicum, and they are not Skitarii. Apparently Thallax have different purpose and degree of augmetics from Skitarii, and is equipped in Lorica Thallax, an armor that encases their major organs, nervous system and cerebrum while replacing the skeleton and limbs entirely with armored mechanical systems powered by an internal reactor core. So...cyborgs. But Skitarii are cyborgs too...right? Anyway, as Jet Pack Infantry, they're super mobile and can fly away after shooting so Hit and Run! They're best used against vehicles with their S7 AP5 lightning gun with Rending, but their S5 and T5 mean they're competent in close combat as well. One of the best Troop choices in my opinion, but on the costly side, and while they have access to great weapons, 1d4chan advises against stacking up on them because they're pretty limited and you're better off giving them to your Myrmidon Secutors and Myrmidon Destructors. I did the math above regarding phase plasma-fusils, if you remember.
- Augment upgrades turn them into awesome beasts. Destructor ensures they wreck that vehicle you so badly wanted dead by giving them Tank Hunters, Empyrite allows you to Deep Strike them right behind those vehicles to shoot at their rear armor. Icarian gives you much-needed Skyfire, especially if you're not taking Flyers like Avenger Strike Fighter (I probably wouldn't, they're for my Imperial Guard) or Hyperios missiles on your Tarantulas and Ordo Reductor artillery tanks, in which case throw in a multi-laser or a photon thruster to increase the range and number of shots. This is boosted by their Djinn-sight, which screws over Jink saves, so use them to your advantage. Ferrox turns your Thallax into melee monsters, as by giving them Rage and Rending, they wreck pretty much everything in close combat, particularly if you give them heavy chainblades. The "downside" is that you can't upgrade your lightning guns, but that's not a disadvantage considering that you're prepping this unit for melee and not shooting.
- Multi-melta seems a good choice for Empyrites and Destructors, but 1d4chan advises against it because of Armored Ceramite spam gaining immunity to Melta, so recommends Rending lightning guns instead. Melta bombs still work though as they negate the Armored Ceramite with Armorbane rather than Melta.
- Phase plasma-fusil is a good choice, particularly when dealing with Marines. They also make decent anti-tank weapons as you're usually Deep Striking them behind the vehicles' rear armor, and the 3-shot S6 AP3 with Destructor normally gives you better rolling than a single S8 AP1 shot, and allows you to keep your distance at 18" before jet packing away. Plus Armored Ceramite.
- Photon Thrusters are your main anti-Terminator weaponry, but with the 4+ Armor save, it's not advisable, but you might as well get Castellax who have a much better weapon in Darkfire cannon, with the added Strength and better Armor save. Besides, S6 Lance isn't as good as S7 with Rending, so think wisely. But it does cause Blind when Charging, but if you're priming them for close combat, you might as well ditch it for heavy chainblades and get Ferrox instead. Best left to the Myrmidon Destructors with their BS5 and Preferred Enemy.
- Irad-cleansers wipe out blobs with their Fleshbane template, but as stated earlier, better left to Myrmidon Destructors with their Volkite culverins and irradiation engines instead. Probably good against high Toughness Monstrous Creatures by forcing them to take Armor saves, but again...uh, the Destructors can do the same with AP3 and spamming more irradiation engines. Might as well get your Thallax heavy chainblades and Ferrox to crush infantry in combat (Instant Death for T3 blobs), and Rending from 12 S7 attacks which mathematically gives you an extra automatic wound at AP2.
- Spread them out as Djinn-sight will fuck with Infiltrators, and while they're pretty tough, your T5 4+ and Feel No Pain Thallax will still be Instant Death by S10 AP4 attacks. As they can take a Triaros Armored Conveyor as a Dedicated Transport, spam them and then disembark your Thallax to have them either jet-packing all over the place or crushing infantry in close combat.
Scyllax Guardian-automata Covenant: Did somebody call Cthulhu and tell him the Mechanicus is having a party? These guys look more alien than the Xenos themselves (except Tyranids)! They can take a Triaros Armored Conveyor as Dedicated Transport, start off at 4 and go up to 16. Thallax are slightly more expensive but they have a better statline and upgrades, but these guys are more defensive and can actually Instant Death kill Terminators with their Dismemberment attack. They can be taken as bodyguards for Magos Calleb or a Magos Reductor, and should be as their rad furnace will ensure you destroy most things in melee after reducing their Toughness by 1.
- Scyllax bolter is what they come stock with, and is one of the longest-range weapons in the Mechanicum. But they're only rapid fire so if you stay out of range, they can only fire one shot each. They're basically Skitarii Rangers wannabe weapons. For 5 more points, you get a rotor cannon that fires 4 shots, even if it's 1 Strength lower and 2 AP higher, it's bound to deal more damage at 30". Volkite chargers are another option, but they only fire 2 shots at 15", even if they do have a higher strength. Dakka AND range over strength, plus the rotor cannons are cheaper, so consider them wisely.
- Template weapons are good, and by giving them all flamers, and perhaps 1 in 4 rad-cleansers, they can throw up at least 4 walls of death, 1 with Fleshbane. They also absolutely destroy blobs much better than Thallax with a single irad-cleanser, but again Myrmidon Destructors do them better.
- Graviton guns will help glance vehicles to death with Haywire, but with only one every four, it's pretty limited. Meltagun is self-explanatory, and to be honest, the graviton gun is better than a meltagun at taking out vehicles, BUT the meltagun has the edge on dealing with heavily armored infantry such as Terminators. But you might as well take the plasma gun in that case, except that it's 5 points more expensive and Gets Hot! Keep in mind you do get 2 shots in rapid fire, plus twice the range of the meltagun. Not to mention Armored Ceramite.
Castellax Class Battle-automata Maniple: A Monstrous Creature that used to be so cheap it saw a points raise in the Mechanicum: Taghmata Army List to balance out its overpoweredness. Designed solely for destroying Space Marines with his BS4, T7, W4 and AP3 attacks, it'll survive anything thrown against it, except maybe Plasma Veterans, and dish out a lot of hurt in return. It's also a monster in close combat, especially if you Charge as Rage gives him 4 Attacks - just make sure you bought him frag grenades. Reactor Blast doesn't hurt them much so feel free to group them together, and it'll in fact deal more damage to your enemy, especially in Assault.
- Keep in mind, they cannot be taken as compulsory Troops unless you're bringing a Legio Cybernetica army, in which case you must take at least 2 in each of your 2 compulsory Troops choice. If you're playing vanilla Taghmata, you must take Thallax and/or Adsecularis Tech-thralls to fill up your 2 compulsory Troops choice first before considering these guys as they no longer fulfill those requirements. Sad...the days of bringing just one Magos Dominus and 2 Castellax for the battleforged requirements are over.
- They come standard with shock chargers, which gives all their melee attacks, including Hammer of Wrath, Concussive. You can replace them with Battle-automata power blades though, to get AP2 Rending, except that as Monstrous Creatures they already have AP2 as default by virtue of Smash. It's a cheap upgrade that gives you an extra attack (cool!) and Rending for that extra D3 Armor Penetration if you get desperate enough to Charge vehicles. Consider it if you have spare points left over for some reason.
- You can swap the Mauler bolt cannon for a multi-melta for free, but if you want it as anti-tank, you might as well stick it in your Thallax who can Deep Strike or fly across the field or take a Triaros Armored Conveyor to get close to the vehicle and maybe even shoot its rear armor. But it is an option for wiping out Terminators and other units with 2+ Armor save, but if that's the case you might as well get the longer-ranged Darkfire cannon with more shots.
- Darkfire cannons, as mentioned above, are great because of their incredibly long range, 2 shots and AP2, which allows them to snipe Monstrous Creatures, Primarchs and maybe even vehicles with their S7 Lance if you feel lucky with your rolling. They also force units to take Blind tests so you can Charge them and may give a huge advantage.
- You can swap the bolters for flamers if you want to annihilate blobs and hordes. Two templates is nothing to laugh at for the number of Wounds it puts out.
- Siege Wrecker is a pretty expensive piece of equipment that is awesome as it gives 4 S10 AP2 attacks if you Charge, but at the tremendous cost of 20 points and a single boltgun, where the latter isn't a big deal.
- Enhanced targeting array is a great upgrade for these guys as they reduce the cover saves of opponents from your low AP weapons AND increase your BS to 5. Combos well with the Darkfire cannon to make sure your sniping hits its target.
- Paragon of Metal is an incredibly awesome BUT expensive upgrade that you can give to any single Castellax, if you're running them solo in a single Troops slot. Beware, Cybertheurgy becomes risky as he'll automatically go Malifica, but you're taking this upgrade to let the guy run out of Cortex Controller range (or you're ditching cortext controllers altogether) anyway so who cares about that? If you're giving him this expensive gift, you might as well splurge and throw in enhanced targeting array, a Darkfire cannon, frag grenades and Siege Wrecker to turn him into an absolute monster for *just* 200 points.
Unique Characters
Archmagos Draykavac: Freaking bastard from the evil Dark Mechanicum who abused my fellow Knights. House Atrax, if I recall. Grr...Gives all units Preferred Enemy (all Infantry) when they are within 3" of objectives, has a weird Liquifractor attack that liquifies targets in Assault and uses the High Techno-arcana (Stataraga) which goves Walkers, Super-heavy Walkers and Monstrous Creatures +1 to their charge distances and Sweeping Advance. Can also be taken as HQ for a Questoris Knight army (NOOOO!). Gameplay-wise, very good, fluff-wise, an evil bastard.
Archmagos Inar Satarael: A Mechanicum Deadnought who lost his body and almost died, only to come back to life as synthesized biomass and cerebral cortex (brain) inside a machine. He is now a Monstrous Creature with Toughness 6, almost a Castellex, 5 Wounds, Feel No Pain (5+) and a Repulsion Shield that protect him against S6 attacks that aren't Templates or Blasts. 4+ means the wound is negated while 6 reflects the shot at the firers and strikes them automatically. Nasty. No protection from Destroter weapons, though. As tough as he is, he only has a 3+ Armor save and no Eternal Warrior, but as afraid of death as he is, he even planned for that. His Emergency Teleport Protocol activates when he loses his last Wound, and after rolling a D6, he teleports on a 3+, denying your opponent a Victory Point, including for Slay the Warlord. Even better, he leaves a final "fuck you!" present, blowing up the spot he left. He also has Patris Cybernetica, so throw him into a unit of Battle-automata, turning them into close combat monsters. He also has the Warlord Trait Implacable Advance, so all friendly Taghmata units within 12" get to roll an additional D6 when taking Morale checks and use the 2 lowest, which is cool. Have cool weapons like a graviton imploder and a twin-linked Maxim bolter, plus a servo-arm. Beware, he costs almost as much as a Knight, but he is both an Archmagos Dominus and an Archmagos Archimandrite, and the only way of having both in your army.
Magos Reductor Calleb Decima: A Magos Reductor who has an axe to grind with the Traitors who shot down his spacecraft during the Isstvan III betrayal, and runs around taking revenge on them HERETICS! An Independent Character with Precision Shots, he isn't as accurate or good in melee as other Archmagos, with only a 5++ save but gains an extra Wound and Strength. Equipped with only a Master-crafted bolt pistol, he isn't exactly setting the world on fire with his shooting either. Why take him then? Well, for one thing he is the only Magos Reductor you can take in a vanilla Taghmata list, meaning you can take non-Thallax troops and any number of Battle-automata and Siege-automata as you want without restriction while reciving the Ordo Reductor buffs. His unit gets Walker in Ruin, which is essentially Move Through Cover and immunity to Pinning. He also has Master of Destruction, which gives him Sunder and +1 to vehicle damage and building damage tables for his attacks, or confers it to a Heavy or Ordnance weapon within 6" of him. As he can take a Macrocarid Explorator as a Dedicated Transport, you can give it that too! He also gets his Bodyguards of either Scyllax Guardian-automata or Tech-priest Auxillia Reductors that don't count toward FOC. He also has a Curse of Omnissiah spell that can only be used once per game but screams Instant Death to vehicles with 2D6 Heavy Haywire attacks. Also very viable in a proper Ordo Reductor list for his Macrocarid Explorator Dedicated Transport, his support abilities and make sure to upgrade his invulnerable save to 4++ with a Cyber-familiar and stick him in a Scyllax bodyguard unit to Instant Death Marines in melee!
- Decma Invictus: Upgrade time! Calleb gets promoted to Archmagos and gains Relentless and Hatred (Traitors) - understandably so, as I mentioned, he got screwed over by them in Isstvan III when they shot him down in orbit, and Eternal Warrior. He must be the Warlord and has the Warlord Trait Battlefield Analysis. On the other hand, he and his entire army must always make Sweeping Advances and cannot voluntarily Go to Ground. You win some, you lose some.
Anacharis Scoria: A new addition from Horus Heresy book 6: Retribution, this guy is the fallen master, the Xanophane Tyrant...never mind. Anyway, he was a dude who supposedly was imprisoned by the Archmagos he once served inside some prison-forge of Xana-Tisiphone, where he apparently went mad, and escaped from the disaster of the Xana Incursion...presumably killing all the rulers in a bloody coup and becoming the Xanophane Tyrant. Yeah. Anyway, he's a powerful dual-wielding Archmagos. He's another Cybernetica type HQ who specializes in having Battle-automata. He can take a single Arlatax Battle-automata as a pseudo-bodyguard, and this guy has Paragon of Metal and Rage special rules for free. Anacharis Scorcia himself wields an awesome Vodian scepter that is AP2 and has Entropic Destroyer, which means that any successful hit with this weapon inflicts D3 wounds automatically on the targeted unit or model. For vehicles with AV, it means a single hull point is lost per hit. So keep your tanks away from him! Even better, only invulnerable saves can be taken against these wounds, but Feel No Pain and It Will Not Die no longer works!
Anacharis can also cast another Cybertheurgy spell called Rite of the Beast, which has a modifier of -2. If successfully applied, it affects an enitre unit of models rather than a single model. All models in this unit can re-roll failed hits in assault and add +1 to their Initiative, move and charge distances! In other words, your Battle-automata become beasts! WOOHOO! The downside, unfortunately is that after the power's effect ends, you need to roll D6 for each surviving model in the unit, and if you roll a 1, the model suffers a wound with no save of any kind possible. Ouch. Still beastly. Anyway, Anacharis buffs your Cybernetica more if he is your Warlord (and he must be your Warlord if you take him in your Primary Detachment), with the trait Forbidden Protocols allowing Battle-automata to make Sweeping Advances and Run moves, and non-Paragon of Metal models outside the cortex controller range must move toward nearest non-Flyer enemies, and must make charges and Sweeping Advance moves if able to do so. Anacharis can also take his own unique Abeyant at 40 points, which gives him +1 Wound, +1 Attack, Move Through Cover, Very Bulky, Hardened Armor, It Will Not Die and a photon thruster (to allow him to thrust...heh). So yeah, it's an upgraded and more expensive version of the normal Abeyant, just gives him an extra attack and photon thruster in comparison. So totally worth it.
ELITES
Tech-Priest Auxillia: Comes in three flavors, depending on the Techno-Arcana you choose: Enginseer, which is your standard Imperial Guard Tech-Priest Enginseer that repairs stuff, Lacyraemarta, which are your Tech-thrall masters and overseers, and Reductor who go around wrecking tanks with their bare hands...uh, servo-arms. They can take Triaros Armored Conveyor as a Dedicated Transport and herd around 4 Servo-automata, which you can increase to 8, and while doing so, add a 2nd Adept to the same unit. One can be promoted to a Magos Auxillia for 20 points, just so you get better stats and more Wounds.
- Enginseer gives +1 to Battlesmith rolls and a servo-arm, and Servo-automata become Support where each additional servo-armed Servo-automata improves the roll by a further 1+, to a maximum of...well, a roll of '1' always fail so if you're bringing them purely for support, stick to the stock 4.
- Lacyraemarta gives your Adepts and as long as they are alive, their Servo-automata Feel No Pain (5+). Friendly Adsecularis units within 6" also get +1 to their Feel No Pain rolls as long as the Adepts are alive. Nice. Combine with a Magos Lachrimallus for maximum hilarity.
- Reductor reduces vehicles to smoldering wrecks by conferring Tank Hunter and Sunder to your servo-armed Adepts and their Servo-automata. Adepts can swap out their servo-arms for either a conversion beamer or graviton beamer for 25 points each. That's actually not bad!
Domitar Class Battle-automata maniple: A giant robot that excels in melee with his WS4 (but has BS3), has a missile launcher that fires krak and Ignis-frag missiles (48" S5 AP6 small Blast that Ignores Cover), which can be upgraded with flak missiles for 5 points if you really want to shoot that plane down...in which you're wasting 180 points. What you want this guy for is his Graviton Hammer, which deals 3 S10 AP2 Concussive and Wrecker attacks in melee (4 on the charge). It also forces your opponents to make Disordered Charge against it, which is sweet, and has Crusader if he's within range of a cortex controller. Make sure to purchase frag grenades to ensure it gets that extra Charge attack, and while it rips apart other Monstrous Creatures with astonishing ease, it falters against tarpits. You can take one with Paragon of Metal if you wish, or up to 5 of them in a single unit.
Myrmidon Secutors: 3 shooty and close-combat dudes with power axes and 2 weapons, which you can maximize with your Fusillade Attack and BS5. Awesome. Take a Triaros Armored Conveyor as their Dedicated Transport to get them within range as even with 2 weapons firing at the same time, their longest-range weapon is only 24".
- Their aforementioned longest-range weapon is the phased plasma-fusil at 24". 1d4chan advises that you don't take it because it is essentially the same as a Mauler bolt cannon without Pinning, which you already have on the Triaros Armored Conveyor they're riding on, and you might as well get Castellax Battle-automatas instead. In fact, the Thallax Cohort gets it for cheaper too, at half the price. They say it's better to get lots of Castellax if you want S6 AP3 shots. However, I think they forget that a unit of 3 Secutors armed with 6 phased plasma-fusils costs around 240 points, and they fire an overwhelming 18 number of S6 AP3 shots at BS5 (thanks to Relentless), whereas two Castellax Battle-automata with Enhanced Targeting Array can only fire 6 shots at BS5 for the same cost. So uh...in terms of dakka per points value, I think the Myrmidon Secutors have the Castellax beat (unless you want to count the weaker boltguns on the Castellax). Additionally, you can only take 1 phase plasma-fusil per 3 Thallax , which means you'll only have 6 S6 AP3 shots per 275 points (300 if you upgrade with Destructor or 285 with Empyrite) and 4 S7 AP5 shots, so it's not as if you can spam AP3 shots there either. Of course, I'm an amateur, so trust 1d4chan over me.
- According to 1d4chan, another weapon that should be dropped faster than a bad Harem anime starring a bland protagonist (and I'm sick of watching those so I can relate) is the Maxim bolter. It costs the same as a Volkite charger, but is weaker by 1 Strength, has less range by 3", and while it fires 3 shots, you'll have better luck getting more wounds with the Volkite charger thanks to its higher strength and Deflagrate.
- Graviton guns are good as the amount of Haywire shots they spew is enough to destroy vehicle, even an Imperial Knight who somehow failed all his Ion Shield saves (or you were smart enough to shoot at him from another direction). For 210 points, that's a pretty good deal, especially if you glance a similarly costed Land Raider to death. Well, it goes up to 350 points with a Triaros Armored Conveyor though, but by the time they blow your truck up, you would have popped 2 Land Raiders and a Knight - enough to earn their points back twice over. As a bonus, Haywire nullifies the damned Armored Ceramite everyone's been spamming in 30K.
- Irrad Cleansers are a strong choice because of Fleshbane and Rad-phage templates, but you might as well bring Myrmidon Destructors with their Irradiation Engines with Torrent and AP3, so...take them instead.
- Volkite chargers...as with Irrad Cleansers, you might want to bring Myrmidon Destructors with Volkite culverins instead as they do twice the number of shots at 3 times the range, and at a higher strength to boot. If you want dakka, the phased plasma-fusil is a better choice with more shots, higher Strength and lower AP.
TROOPS
Adesecularis Covenant: Your blob of Tech-thralls! Comes in squads of 10, and can go up to 20, all for the super-cheap price of 3 per model! This makes them the cheapest unit in 30K, and perhaps even 40K where only the Ork Grots are cheaper by a decimal point! They are armed with las-locks, which they can trade for a shorter-range Mitralock shotgun that gains Shred. They make excellent hordes that can excel in close combat for their points if you give them heavy chainblades. Of course, this means they lose the ability to shoot, but at BS2, who cares? They make excellent tarpits or campers, and are pretty hard to remove especially if you give them upgrades. Can also take a Triaros Armored Conveyor as a Dedicated Transport now to ferry them to the nearest Special Snowflake or Gargantuan/Monstrous Creature.
- Rite of Pure Thought turns your 20-men horde into an awesome tarpit that will leave your opponent raging when his Gargantuan Creature or Special Snowflake is stuck in combat with your Fearless blob for 5 turns. They can't fire Overwatch or make Sweeping Advances, but who cares? The idea is to get them stuck in combat for as long as possible! An auto-include.
- Weapons wise, the las-lock has longer range but the Mitralock has shred. The heavy chainblades buffs their strength up to 6, so that T4 Tactical Marine squad is going to shudder at charging into a 20-men blob armed with chainsaws.
- As with any excellent Tarpit, it'll be a good idea to make them more durable. Carapace Armor improves their Armor save, and Revenant Alchemistry enhances their Feel No Pain to 5+ even if they get Slow and Purposeful in return. You also get Hatred, and can't Overwatch anyway if you took Rite of Pure Thought, plus with the Triaros Armored Conveyor Running isn't an issue. Getting stronger in melee is just a bonus though!
- If you prefer shooting, giving them induction chargers will upgrade both las-locks and Mitralocks into 2-shot assault weapons, so increased dakka for a BS2 unit. 1d4chan advises against it.
- Attach a Lacyraemarta Tech-Priest Auxillia to them for a 4+ Feel No Pain, and watch your opponent rage as your Tech-thralls keep coming back to life even after losing a Wound.
- If you want a horde-style army packed with zombie Tech-thralls, then you can place 120 models on the table. 1d4chan says Solar Auxillia will serve better if you want pure numbers as you can have 3 Auxillia Lasrifle Sections of 20 men each, each 100 points, so maybe about 360 models on the table for 1,800 points? On the other hand, the Adsecularis Convenants will only cost you 145x6 = 870 points with full upgrades, leaving you points to throw in other stuff like Thanatar Siege-automatas and a beefed up Magos Lachrimallus with Lacyraemarta Tech-Priests Auxillia.
Thallax Cohort: Ordo Reductor shock troops that spread out to the rest of the Mechanicum, and they are not Skitarii. Apparently Thallax have different purpose and degree of augmetics from Skitarii, and is equipped in Lorica Thallax, an armor that encases their major organs, nervous system and cerebrum while replacing the skeleton and limbs entirely with armored mechanical systems powered by an internal reactor core. So...cyborgs. But Skitarii are cyborgs too...right? Anyway, as Jet Pack Infantry, they're super mobile and can fly away after shooting so Hit and Run! They're best used against vehicles with their S7 AP5 lightning gun with Rending, but their S5 and T5 mean they're competent in close combat as well. One of the best Troop choices in my opinion, but on the costly side, and while they have access to great weapons, 1d4chan advises against stacking up on them because they're pretty limited and you're better off giving them to your Myrmidon Secutors and Myrmidon Destructors. I did the math above regarding phase plasma-fusils, if you remember.
- Augment upgrades turn them into awesome beasts. Destructor ensures they wreck that vehicle you so badly wanted dead by giving them Tank Hunters, Empyrite allows you to Deep Strike them right behind those vehicles to shoot at their rear armor. Icarian gives you much-needed Skyfire, especially if you're not taking Flyers like Avenger Strike Fighter (I probably wouldn't, they're for my Imperial Guard) or Hyperios missiles on your Tarantulas and Ordo Reductor artillery tanks, in which case throw in a multi-laser or a photon thruster to increase the range and number of shots. This is boosted by their Djinn-sight, which screws over Jink saves, so use them to your advantage. Ferrox turns your Thallax into melee monsters, as by giving them Rage and Rending, they wreck pretty much everything in close combat, particularly if you give them heavy chainblades. The "downside" is that you can't upgrade your lightning guns, but that's not a disadvantage considering that you're prepping this unit for melee and not shooting.
- Multi-melta seems a good choice for Empyrites and Destructors, but 1d4chan advises against it because of Armored Ceramite spam gaining immunity to Melta, so recommends Rending lightning guns instead. Melta bombs still work though as they negate the Armored Ceramite with Armorbane rather than Melta.
- Phase plasma-fusil is a good choice, particularly when dealing with Marines. They also make decent anti-tank weapons as you're usually Deep Striking them behind the vehicles' rear armor, and the 3-shot S6 AP3 with Destructor normally gives you better rolling than a single S8 AP1 shot, and allows you to keep your distance at 18" before jet packing away. Plus Armored Ceramite.
- Photon Thrusters are your main anti-Terminator weaponry, but with the 4+ Armor save, it's not advisable, but you might as well get Castellax who have a much better weapon in Darkfire cannon, with the added Strength and better Armor save. Besides, S6 Lance isn't as good as S7 with Rending, so think wisely. But it does cause Blind when Charging, but if you're priming them for close combat, you might as well ditch it for heavy chainblades and get Ferrox instead. Best left to the Myrmidon Destructors with their BS5 and Preferred Enemy.
- Irad-cleansers wipe out blobs with their Fleshbane template, but as stated earlier, better left to Myrmidon Destructors with their Volkite culverins and irradiation engines instead. Probably good against high Toughness Monstrous Creatures by forcing them to take Armor saves, but again...uh, the Destructors can do the same with AP3 and spamming more irradiation engines. Might as well get your Thallax heavy chainblades and Ferrox to crush infantry in combat (Instant Death for T3 blobs), and Rending from 12 S7 attacks which mathematically gives you an extra automatic wound at AP2.
- Spread them out as Djinn-sight will fuck with Infiltrators, and while they're pretty tough, your T5 4+ and Feel No Pain Thallax will still be Instant Death by S10 AP4 attacks. As they can take a Triaros Armored Conveyor as a Dedicated Transport, spam them and then disembark your Thallax to have them either jet-packing all over the place or crushing infantry in close combat.
Scyllax Guardian-automata Covenant: Did somebody call Cthulhu and tell him the Mechanicus is having a party? These guys look more alien than the Xenos themselves (except Tyranids)! They can take a Triaros Armored Conveyor as Dedicated Transport, start off at 4 and go up to 16. Thallax are slightly more expensive but they have a better statline and upgrades, but these guys are more defensive and can actually Instant Death kill Terminators with their Dismemberment attack. They can be taken as bodyguards for Magos Calleb or a Magos Reductor, and should be as their rad furnace will ensure you destroy most things in melee after reducing their Toughness by 1.
- Scyllax bolter is what they come stock with, and is one of the longest-range weapons in the Mechanicum. But they're only rapid fire so if you stay out of range, they can only fire one shot each. They're basically Skitarii Rangers wannabe weapons. For 5 more points, you get a rotor cannon that fires 4 shots, even if it's 1 Strength lower and 2 AP higher, it's bound to deal more damage at 30". Volkite chargers are another option, but they only fire 2 shots at 15", even if they do have a higher strength. Dakka AND range over strength, plus the rotor cannons are cheaper, so consider them wisely.
- Template weapons are good, and by giving them all flamers, and perhaps 1 in 4 rad-cleansers, they can throw up at least 4 walls of death, 1 with Fleshbane. They also absolutely destroy blobs much better than Thallax with a single irad-cleanser, but again Myrmidon Destructors do them better.
- Graviton guns will help glance vehicles to death with Haywire, but with only one every four, it's pretty limited. Meltagun is self-explanatory, and to be honest, the graviton gun is better than a meltagun at taking out vehicles, BUT the meltagun has the edge on dealing with heavily armored infantry such as Terminators. But you might as well take the plasma gun in that case, except that it's 5 points more expensive and Gets Hot! Keep in mind you do get 2 shots in rapid fire, plus twice the range of the meltagun. Not to mention Armored Ceramite.
Castellax Class Battle-automata Maniple: A Monstrous Creature that used to be so cheap it saw a points raise in the Mechanicum: Taghmata Army List to balance out its overpoweredness. Designed solely for destroying Space Marines with his BS4, T7, W4 and AP3 attacks, it'll survive anything thrown against it, except maybe Plasma Veterans, and dish out a lot of hurt in return. It's also a monster in close combat, especially if you Charge as Rage gives him 4 Attacks - just make sure you bought him frag grenades. Reactor Blast doesn't hurt them much so feel free to group them together, and it'll in fact deal more damage to your enemy, especially in Assault.
- Keep in mind, they cannot be taken as compulsory Troops unless you're bringing a Legio Cybernetica army, in which case you must take at least 2 in each of your 2 compulsory Troops choice. If you're playing vanilla Taghmata, you must take Thallax and/or Adsecularis Tech-thralls to fill up your 2 compulsory Troops choice first before considering these guys as they no longer fulfill those requirements. Sad...the days of bringing just one Magos Dominus and 2 Castellax for the battleforged requirements are over.
- They come standard with shock chargers, which gives all their melee attacks, including Hammer of Wrath, Concussive. You can replace them with Battle-automata power blades though, to get AP2 Rending, except that as Monstrous Creatures they already have AP2 as default by virtue of Smash. It's a cheap upgrade that gives you an extra attack (cool!) and Rending for that extra D3 Armor Penetration if you get desperate enough to Charge vehicles. Consider it if you have spare points left over for some reason.
- You can swap the Mauler bolt cannon for a multi-melta for free, but if you want it as anti-tank, you might as well stick it in your Thallax who can Deep Strike or fly across the field or take a Triaros Armored Conveyor to get close to the vehicle and maybe even shoot its rear armor. But it is an option for wiping out Terminators and other units with 2+ Armor save, but if that's the case you might as well get the longer-ranged Darkfire cannon with more shots.
- Darkfire cannons, as mentioned above, are great because of their incredibly long range, 2 shots and AP2, which allows them to snipe Monstrous Creatures, Primarchs and maybe even vehicles with their S7 Lance if you feel lucky with your rolling. They also force units to take Blind tests so you can Charge them and may give a huge advantage.
- You can swap the bolters for flamers if you want to annihilate blobs and hordes. Two templates is nothing to laugh at for the number of Wounds it puts out.
- Siege Wrecker is a pretty expensive piece of equipment that is awesome as it gives 4 S10 AP2 attacks if you Charge, but at the tremendous cost of 20 points and a single boltgun, where the latter isn't a big deal.
- Enhanced targeting array is a great upgrade for these guys as they reduce the cover saves of opponents from your low AP weapons AND increase your BS to 5. Combos well with the Darkfire cannon to make sure your sniping hits its target.
- Paragon of Metal is an incredibly awesome BUT expensive upgrade that you can give to any single Castellax, if you're running them solo in a single Troops slot. Beware, Cybertheurgy becomes risky as he'll automatically go Malifica, but you're taking this upgrade to let the guy run out of Cortex Controller range (or you're ditching cortext controllers altogether) anyway so who cares about that? If you're giving him this expensive gift, you might as well splurge and throw in enhanced targeting array, a Darkfire cannon, frag grenades and Siege Wrecker to turn him into an absolute monster for *just* 200 points.
Secutarii Peltast Phalanx: The cheaper option at 120 points and 11 points per model if you want more than 10, they are armed with galvanic casters, which can be upgraded to have Kinetic hammershot rounds for 3 points each. They also have a Blind Barrage rule that allows them to fire blindly, ahem...I mean, in exchange for shooting their weapons, they grant a friendly unit Shrouded for the whole round. Super-heavy units need 2 Secutarii Peltast units to cover them because they are so big. Oh, what? The galvanic casters? Right, that's the main draw. There are 3 modes, including the Kinetic hammershot upgrade above. The first mode is flachette burster, which fires Salvo 2/4 from 24" range, Strength 2 but with Shred. Second mode is Ignis blaze, which has a shorter range of 18" but is Heavy, Strength 3 AP 5, Blind, fired at units who are out of line of sight as long as they are not in an enclosed space, and Blast (3"). The third more, which you have to buy, is Kinetic hammershot, which boosts the range to 30", the Strength to 4 and AP to 3, but is Heavy and Rending. This is your Marine-killer rounds, and because they have the Relentless rule, you can move and shoot without having to worry about snap-firing. They can take a Triaros Armored Conveyor as a Dedicated Transport. Oh, their Kyropatris field generator allows them to re-roll armor saves of 1, plus if you have at least 10 models in a squad, shooting attacks against them are reduced by -1 Strength. Awesome! Same Feel No Pain (6+), so they don't die that easily.
Secutarii Hoplite Phalanx: The melee version of the Secutarii, equipped with the same Kyropatris field generator...but they also have mag-inverter shields that give them a 5++ invulnerable save, on top of the Feel No Pain (6+). They are really resilient. They are armed with arc lances, which is Haywire. They normally are Strength 5 AP 5 with a pitiful range of 12" when you shoot them, but you're taking them for Haywire, so haywire those armored ceramite Land Raiders and Spartans to death. In melee, the arc lances give them +1 Strength (so Strength 4) AP 4, Haywire and Concussive. Try not to charge Marines with them, they do much better against vehicles. Though they do work well against power armor and Terminator armor Marines in a pinch, and they don't die so easily, so you can tarpit them if you run out of vehicles to rekt. Remember, even though they are Troops, they cannot be taken as Compuslory units unless you bring a Titan!
DEDICATED TRANSPORT
Triaros Armored Conveyor: An awesome transport tank with an AV14 front, and AV12 on the sides and back, and has 4 Hull Points! This tank comes with a standard flare shield that -1 your opponents' shooting attacks and -2 to Blasts and Templates for even greater survivability. It also gets a Shock Ram where its front armor is counted as 15, and gets Haywire! Not only that, it throws out D6 S6 AP5 hits that land AUTOMATICALLY during a tank shock! Best of all, it doesn't count as a weapon and so isn't affected by Weapon Destroyed results. Can carry 20 units, gain Blessed Autosimulacra (weaker It Will Not Die) for 5 points which is an auto-include, and re-rolls failed Dangerous Terrain tests. Spam these things and watch your opponent cry.
- Don't forgetthe Volkite Sentinels, they essentially function as intelligent Volkite chargers and can shoot at other units. Use them to take out blobs.
- Use for transporting Myrmidons such as the short-ranged Secutors and perhaps Destructors with irradiation engines and graviton imploders. Tech-Priest Auxillia Enginseers can repair this vehicle while mounted inside, and combined with Blessed Autosimulacra, It literally Will Not fucking Die.
FAST ATTACK
Ursarax Cohort: They are lightning claws-equipped Thallax, being Jump Infantry and designed for close combat rather than shooting. They do have an Ironman chest repulsor...uh...Volkite incinerator that fires a beam at 10" with Deflagrate, but becomes a Blast in melee that causes Instant Death if you choose to sacrifice all your normal attacks for a single of this. It can only be used against Infantry, Jump Infantry or Jet Pack Infantry, though, so you might as well stick to the lightning claws or power fists that give you S10.
Tarantula Sentry Gun Battery: A cheap, flexible gun that you can customize any way you want from the awesome choices of twin-linked heavy bolters, twin-linked multi-laser, twin-linked heavy flamers, two twin-linked rotor cannons. twin-linked Mauler Bolt Cannon, twin-linked Volkite Culverin, twin-linked Photon Thruster, quad-gun, twin-linked lascannon and a multi-melta with searchlight. You could make an entire battery with Hyperios air-defence missile launcher, and give one of them a Hyperios command platform for Split Fire. If you hate the Firing Modes, just stick a Battlesmith within 6" and he'll override them with his Anima Override to fire normally at whoever and wherever you want instead of the 36"-90 degree or 18" restrictions. With BS3, though, they're not going to score all your hits, but twin-linked goes some way in negating that.
Vorax Class Battle-automata Maniple: Your awesome Mantis killer bots! With WS4 and Battle-automata power blades, they have Rending and an extra, making them deadly in close combat. Can take up to 6 of them, and while fragile, they can still absorb quite a bit of damage with their T6 and W3 while hacking apart blobs or smaller units with their volume of attacks (4 on the Charge).
- If you're playing Legio Cybernetica, pack them in swarms of 6, purchase Cortica Primus for your Archmagos Dominus and cast the Cybertheurgy power Rite of Fury on them. If it succeeds, each of your Vorax Battle-automata will have +2 attacks, and 6 of them will mean 12 extra attacks to their normal 24 attacks. And that's not even counting Hammer of Wrath. So a total of 42 S6 AP2 attacks, 36 of which have Rending, and striking at I5 they'll rip apart Terminators, Space Marines and any other unit at I4 before they can even hit back. Blobs will drown under the sheer volume of attacks, and at WS4, you'll should be landing 24 hits or so. Don't underestimate these guys.
- Shooting wise, they're still surprisingly decent. With a lightning gun that you can change for an irad-cloeanser at 10 points, you still have 2 rotor cannons that you can fire. Being Monstrous Creatures, they are Relentless, so they can pump out 8 shots at 30" each. Better yet, you can equip those rotor cannons with bio-corrosive ammunition, which while halves their range, becomes Poisoned at 4+, ensuring at least half of your shots wound those T4 and higher Marines/Monstrous Creatures instead of the pathetic S3 the original packs. Throw in an enhanced targeting array to ensure more of your dakka lands, and takes away cover, but...depending on the scenario they might not be worth it.
Crusade Fleet Avenger Strike Fighter: Your standard Avenger Strike Fighter with the Marine-killing Avenger bolt cannon, but gains access to Mechanicum upgrades such as Battle Servitor control that gives Tank Hunters. Gets two Kraken penetrator heavy missiles but one use only.
Crusade Fleet Primaris-Lightning Strike Fighter: Upgraded version of a Lightning Strike Fighter, with BS4 and a few upgrades, they also get to equip two Sunfury heavy missiles, two Kraken penetrator heavy missiles, a Phosphex bomb cluster and two electromagnetic storm charges, all having one use only. Make a great anti-air or anti-tank plane with the Kraken penetrator heavy missiles while the Sunfury heavy missile and phosphex bomb cluster are made to wipe out blobs of Marines, the former with its Large Blast and S6 AP3 Blind, and the latter with its 2 small Blast Barrage with Poisoned (3+), AP2 with Crawling Fire and Lingering Death. Keep in mind the Phoxphex bomb cluster is a Deadly Cargo, though, so if your Lightning takes a hit and somehow survives, you need to roll a D6 - on a 6+ your Primaris-Lightning Explodes!
Crusade Fleet Arvus Lighter Orbital Shuttle: The Mechanicum version of a Valkyrie, it is a transport Flyer with the Hover rule. it starts of cheap, carrying 12 models but you can upgrade it into an armored gunship if you so desire, with flare shield, and any one from a choice of multi-laser, autocannon, lascannon (or their twin-linked versions) being available. You can also modify it to carry Battle-automata for the cost of 20 points, transporting a single Castellax or up to two Vorax, but no other Troops. Wow.
Arlatax Class Battle-automata Maniple: The newest Battle-automata on the block, courtesy of Horus Heresy Book 6: Retribution, you can take 1-3 of these guys. Like the Vorax, these guys seem geared toward melee, with WS4, Initiative 4 and 3 Attacks. Also at Toughness 6, they have FOUR Wounds instead of 3, and have both Atomantic shielding and Feel No Pain (6+) to make them even tougher to kill, and 2 power claws each to...well, claw your opponents to death. They are armed with plasma blasters and come stock with frag grenades, but nobody cares about their pathetic BS3 shooting. Funnily enough, their power claws come with an inbuilt light autocannon that fires 3 S6 AP4 Assault rounds at 24" range - a weaker autocannon with more shots. But it's the power claws you want - they give +2 Strength to the Arlatax's already high Strength 7, is AP2 to screw over those Terminators, and has Shred. That's right...in case you roll ones, you can re-roll them to make sure you claw them to death. You can trade the power claws for an Arc Scourge if vehicle-hinting is more your thing, and while it doesn't increase your Strength, it gives the Arlatax Armorbane, Rampage and Concussion at the cost of Shred and 10 points. I would rather rely on the Power Claws to glance that AV14 Land Raider to death...on the other hand, Rampage is certainly useful when facing down blobs that outnumber your 1-3 Arlatax. Oh right, and to make matters worse, they are Jump Pack Monstrous Creatures, so Jump, Hit, Jump?!
FORTIFICATION
Imperial Castellum Stronghold: A highly expensive Fortification that's worth its points, providing an invulnerable save through Shielded Gate Barriers, and the options to stuff about 5 different weapons on it, like twin-linked heavy bolter, twin-linked heavy flamer, twin-linked lascannon, multi-melta with searchlight, Hyperios missile launcher, Whirlwind launcher, an Icarus lascannon or a quad gun. You ca even upgrade it with a Hyperios command platform that allows all Skyfire weapons to fire at BS3 and ignore the Automated Fire to target Flyers and Fast Skimmers instead of the closest models. Throw in a comms relay to bring in your Reserves faster or a Hostile signal jammer to force enemy Deep Strikers to mishap on a 4+ if they try to get within 12" of your fortress. Mostly AV14. and so pretty hard to take down. If you bring a Magos Macrotek, you can two of these and annoy your opponent to no end as you camp inside there and fire long-range fire at his units.
LORDS OF WAR
Ordinatus-Minoris Macro Engine: Apparently a "minor" engine that the Centurio Ordinatus runs, because the colossal Ordinatus Primaris like Mars and Endymion are...as huge as continents, maybe. But these guys are sstill gargantuan, and as part of the Centurio Ordinatus, their role is super-heavy artillery that can level cities with their cannons. There are two versions, the Ordinatus Sagittar and the Ordinatus Ulator, and both come with three tureet-mounted volkite culverins, Blessed Autosimulacra, Anabaric claw, an Ordinatus dispersion shield and an Armored Ceramite. As with all Super-heavies, it's incredibly tough, packing a AV14 front with AV13 on the sides and rear and a whooping FOURTEEN Hull Points. Where's your Titans now, huh? Fires at BS4 too, yay. As if that wasn't enough, its Ordinatus Dispersion Shield will have your opponent gnashing his teeth and tearing his hair out (if he had any to begin with) because on the first turn, the strength of shooting attacks AND the roll results of Destroyer weapons are nerfed by -3 against this guy. On the 2nd turn, it goes down to -2 because apparently the powerful shields require so much energy it causes a strain on its generators and causes the protection to degrade over time as its elements begin to burn out. That said, it goes down to -1 on the third and subsequent turns, so maybe the generators didn't spoil after all. The Omnissiah protects.
- The Ordinatus Sagittar is equipped with one Belicosa pattern volcano cannon, the same one mounted on the Warlord Titan's arms, which fires a Strength D AP1 Apocalyptic Blast that destroys machines and evetything else at a whooping range of 180". Hell, yeah. A souped up version of a Shadowsword, or a Baneblade, if you will (I think Shadowsword is more appropriate). At 700 points, however, you're not going to be able to bring this to standard-sized games except 2,800 points and above. The alternative, as I said above, is to just bring a Leviathan Force Organization Chart, and fill in the remaining points or so with high-cost Legio Cybernetica automata (with the limited number of slots, why not?).
- On the other hand, the Ordinatus Ulator is made purely for Apocalypse games, and if you ever bring it to a casual game, do it against someone you hold a grudge against. Its Ulator Class Sonic Destructor fires a 72" range, Pinning, Armorbane, Instant Death and Ignores Cover Massive Blast pie plate (7" if you don't get the drift). No, it doesn't end there. Its Ulator Sonice Wave have you placing the Massive Blast marker on the edge of your firing model's forward hull, and then you move it in a straight line away from your Ulator and toward your enemy until its maximum range (72"). All the models the pie-plate passes over EVEN if it's just partially, suffers a number of automatic hits equal to the number of models the pie-plate swam over. Even Flyers and Flying Creatures aren't safe from this, and count as being hit if your pie-plate passes through their bases. Beware of friendly fire, though - your own units also count as being hit if the pie-plate flies across them.
- - The strength of the weapon's hit is determined by the type of the model it strikes, as listed below:
- - - Infantry, including jump pack and jet pack infantry, at S5
- - - Bikes, Jetbikes, Beasts and Cavalry at S5
- - - Monstrous Creatures and Vehicles at S8
- - - Vehicles with the Tank type at S10
- - - Super-heavy vehicles (all types) at Strength D
- - - Gargantuan Creatures (all types) at Strength D
- - - Buildings and Fortifications at Strength D
- Keep in mind that as with the Ordinatus Sagittar, the only way to bring this 1,075-point monster to a standard game is to use the Leviathan Force Organization Chart, either playing him by himself or allying a small detachment of Mechanicum (or Space Marine Legions) in. Just as well, as his Ulator Sonic Wave will end up hitting and killing them anyway if you accidentally deployed them in front of him. To make your opponent rage even further - and this is possible even in a 2,000-point or even 1,850-point game, you can ally in Questoris Knights. Put one Seneschal and a Scion Martial and watch your opponent froth at the mouth. For 1,850-point games, two Questoris Knights Paladin, one as Lord Scion and the other as Scion Martial, will do very nicely, or if you could swap one Paladin out for a Questoris Knight Errant with bio-corrosive rounds to exterminate those nasty Terminators who are Deep Striking in your backfield. Remember to park both Questoris Knights behind or beside your Sagittar or you'll end up blowing them up with Strength D hits when you "accidentally" clip them with your Sonic Wave. 2 Knights Paladin raining down 6 S6 AP3 pie plates from 72" to mop up the remains of your opponent's army is a great idea, if merciless. I personally would advise against it, though, if you want to continue playing with your friends.
Mechanicum Indentured Knights
Hard to say if you're better off bringing Questoris Knights as allies, so it really depends on your list. If you want 2 or more Knights, then yes, probably a good idea to bring Questoris Knights as allies instead (or have your Mechanicum be allies to your Questoris Knight's Primary Detachment if you don't need that many Troops). If you're only bringing one Knight, then perhaps consider putting him in your vacant Lord of War slot (unless you're playing over 2,800-points and want to put in an Ordinatus Sagittar instead, then might as well bring two Questoris Knights as allies - it's still legal! But unfriendly). What do Mechanicum Indentured Knights get that their Questoris counterparts don't? Blessed Autosimulacra, the weaker form of It Will Not Die, for 10 points. The exception is Cerastus Knight Atropos, which already comes with Blessed Autosimulacra, and isn't in the book so just as well.
Mechanicum Indentured Knight Errant: He comes with a Strength 9 AP 1 Large Blast (5") Thermal cannon, heavy stubber that can be swapped for a meltagun, Strength D Reaper chainsword and an ion shield. As with his Questoris counterpart, he gets the occular augmetics option and can upgrade his heavy stubber with bio-corrosive rounds that shoot at 6" less but with Poisoned (4+). Good against Terminators, good against vehicles. As stated above, the Mechanicum Indentured gets Blessed Autosimulacra for 10 points if you so desire. Has 3 choices of caparace weapons like all plastic Questoris Knights (meaning not the Knight Styrix and Magaera), which ranges from the 72" Ironstorm missile pod that fires a large blast Strength 5 AP4...with Ordnance for some reason (no Barrage or Ignores Cover...what?), the 48" range Stormspear rocket pod that fires 3 Krak missiles (Strength 8 AP 3), to the 48" range Icarus twin autocannon that fires two twin-linked shots at Strength 7 AP4 with Skyfire. So if your opponents bring a ton of aircraft (like Fire Raptors), you can try to bring them down with the Icarus autocannon.
Mechanicum Indentured Knight Paladin: Same as above, almost the same as his 40K version in 7th edition (how time flies, it's already 9th edition). Almost. Instead of the normal rapid-fire battlecannon that we all know and love, we can exchange that 2-shot Ordnance S8 AP3 Large Blast for a 3-shot Ordnance S6 AP3 Large Blast, both at a range of 72". I personally like the 3-shot better for more dakka. Except that when I played him in reality, the Strength 8 variant did a lot better...especially against vehicles and Titans. Well...funny how things work out sometimes. Also gets access to occular augmetics for night-fighting, but quite a meh upgrade, and for some reason the bio-corrosive rounds for his heavy stubber is 2 times more expensive than the Knight Errant - EACH, so it's actually 4 times more expensive if you upgrade both. Argh. Still worth it, maybe, if you're up against Monstrous Creatures and high Toughness units. In any case, a very flexible Knight with much-needed long-range weaponry that you can tailor to be a complete Space Marine killer with his Questoris battle cannon, or capable of performing anti-vehicle duties and Instant Death-ing Space Marines with his rapid-fire battle cannon if you so prefer. Can also take carapace weapons, so people tend to take the Ironstorm missile pod to complement the 72" range of the battle cannon.
DEDICATED TRANSPORT
Triaros Armored Conveyor: An awesome transport tank with an AV14 front, and AV12 on the sides and back, and has 4 Hull Points! This tank comes with a standard flare shield that -1 your opponents' shooting attacks and -2 to Blasts and Templates for even greater survivability. It also gets a Shock Ram where its front armor is counted as 15, and gets Haywire! Not only that, it throws out D6 S6 AP5 hits that land AUTOMATICALLY during a tank shock! Best of all, it doesn't count as a weapon and so isn't affected by Weapon Destroyed results. Can carry 20 units, gain Blessed Autosimulacra (weaker It Will Not Die) for 5 points which is an auto-include, and re-rolls failed Dangerous Terrain tests. Spam these things and watch your opponent cry.
- Don't forgetthe Volkite Sentinels, they essentially function as intelligent Volkite chargers and can shoot at other units. Use them to take out blobs.
- Use for transporting Myrmidons such as the short-ranged Secutors and perhaps Destructors with irradiation engines and graviton imploders. Tech-Priest Auxillia Enginseers can repair this vehicle while mounted inside, and combined with Blessed Autosimulacra, It literally Will Not fucking Die.
FAST ATTACK
Ursarax Cohort: They are lightning claws-equipped Thallax, being Jump Infantry and designed for close combat rather than shooting. They do have an Ironman chest repulsor...uh...Volkite incinerator that fires a beam at 10" with Deflagrate, but becomes a Blast in melee that causes Instant Death if you choose to sacrifice all your normal attacks for a single of this. It can only be used against Infantry, Jump Infantry or Jet Pack Infantry, though, so you might as well stick to the lightning claws or power fists that give you S10.
Tarantula Sentry Gun Battery: A cheap, flexible gun that you can customize any way you want from the awesome choices of twin-linked heavy bolters, twin-linked multi-laser, twin-linked heavy flamers, two twin-linked rotor cannons. twin-linked Mauler Bolt Cannon, twin-linked Volkite Culverin, twin-linked Photon Thruster, quad-gun, twin-linked lascannon and a multi-melta with searchlight. You could make an entire battery with Hyperios air-defence missile launcher, and give one of them a Hyperios command platform for Split Fire. If you hate the Firing Modes, just stick a Battlesmith within 6" and he'll override them with his Anima Override to fire normally at whoever and wherever you want instead of the 36"-90 degree or 18" restrictions. With BS3, though, they're not going to score all your hits, but twin-linked goes some way in negating that.
Vorax Class Battle-automata Maniple: Your awesome Mantis killer bots! With WS4 and Battle-automata power blades, they have Rending and an extra, making them deadly in close combat. Can take up to 6 of them, and while fragile, they can still absorb quite a bit of damage with their T6 and W3 while hacking apart blobs or smaller units with their volume of attacks (4 on the Charge).
- If you're playing Legio Cybernetica, pack them in swarms of 6, purchase Cortica Primus for your Archmagos Dominus and cast the Cybertheurgy power Rite of Fury on them. If it succeeds, each of your Vorax Battle-automata will have +2 attacks, and 6 of them will mean 12 extra attacks to their normal 24 attacks. And that's not even counting Hammer of Wrath. So a total of 42 S6 AP2 attacks, 36 of which have Rending, and striking at I5 they'll rip apart Terminators, Space Marines and any other unit at I4 before they can even hit back. Blobs will drown under the sheer volume of attacks, and at WS4, you'll should be landing 24 hits or so. Don't underestimate these guys.
- Shooting wise, they're still surprisingly decent. With a lightning gun that you can change for an irad-cloeanser at 10 points, you still have 2 rotor cannons that you can fire. Being Monstrous Creatures, they are Relentless, so they can pump out 8 shots at 30" each. Better yet, you can equip those rotor cannons with bio-corrosive ammunition, which while halves their range, becomes Poisoned at 4+, ensuring at least half of your shots wound those T4 and higher Marines/Monstrous Creatures instead of the pathetic S3 the original packs. Throw in an enhanced targeting array to ensure more of your dakka lands, and takes away cover, but...depending on the scenario they might not be worth it.
Crusade Fleet Avenger Strike Fighter: Your standard Avenger Strike Fighter with the Marine-killing Avenger bolt cannon, but gains access to Mechanicum upgrades such as Battle Servitor control that gives Tank Hunters. Gets two Kraken penetrator heavy missiles but one use only.
Crusade Fleet Primaris-Lightning Strike Fighter: Upgraded version of a Lightning Strike Fighter, with BS4 and a few upgrades, they also get to equip two Sunfury heavy missiles, two Kraken penetrator heavy missiles, a Phosphex bomb cluster and two electromagnetic storm charges, all having one use only. Make a great anti-air or anti-tank plane with the Kraken penetrator heavy missiles while the Sunfury heavy missile and phosphex bomb cluster are made to wipe out blobs of Marines, the former with its Large Blast and S6 AP3 Blind, and the latter with its 2 small Blast Barrage with Poisoned (3+), AP2 with Crawling Fire and Lingering Death. Keep in mind the Phoxphex bomb cluster is a Deadly Cargo, though, so if your Lightning takes a hit and somehow survives, you need to roll a D6 - on a 6+ your Primaris-Lightning Explodes!
Crusade Fleet Arvus Lighter Orbital Shuttle: The Mechanicum version of a Valkyrie, it is a transport Flyer with the Hover rule. it starts of cheap, carrying 12 models but you can upgrade it into an armored gunship if you so desire, with flare shield, and any one from a choice of multi-laser, autocannon, lascannon (or their twin-linked versions) being available. You can also modify it to carry Battle-automata for the cost of 20 points, transporting a single Castellax or up to two Vorax, but no other Troops. Wow.
Arlatax Class Battle-automata Maniple: The newest Battle-automata on the block, courtesy of Horus Heresy Book 6: Retribution, you can take 1-3 of these guys. Like the Vorax, these guys seem geared toward melee, with WS4, Initiative 4 and 3 Attacks. Also at Toughness 6, they have FOUR Wounds instead of 3, and have both Atomantic shielding and Feel No Pain (6+) to make them even tougher to kill, and 2 power claws each to...well, claw your opponents to death. They are armed with plasma blasters and come stock with frag grenades, but nobody cares about their pathetic BS3 shooting. Funnily enough, their power claws come with an inbuilt light autocannon that fires 3 S6 AP4 Assault rounds at 24" range - a weaker autocannon with more shots. But it's the power claws you want - they give +2 Strength to the Arlatax's already high Strength 7, is AP2 to screw over those Terminators, and has Shred. That's right...in case you roll ones, you can re-roll them to make sure you claw them to death. You can trade the power claws for an Arc Scourge if vehicle-hinting is more your thing, and while it doesn't increase your Strength, it gives the Arlatax Armorbane, Rampage and Concussion at the cost of Shred and 10 points. I would rather rely on the Power Claws to glance that AV14 Land Raider to death...on the other hand, Rampage is certainly useful when facing down blobs that outnumber your 1-3 Arlatax. Oh right, and to make matters worse, they are Jump Pack Monstrous Creatures, so Jump, Hit, Jump?!
Vultarax Stratos-automata Maniple: Did I forget about this Flying Monstrous Creature that shoots 3 Haywire blasts, can be taken in maniples of 3? Also has a Havoc launcher that launches 2 small blasts Strength 5 AP 5 and is twin-linked, but let's be real, we're taking this dude for his haywire arc blasters. Pretty beefy at Toughness 6, has an innate Enhanced Targeting Array built into him so he's actually BS5 and can reduce cover saves by 1. If you want to give him power blades, you can, I guess? Though at Strength 4, I'm not sure what you're going to hit in the air.
HEAVY SUPPORT
Thanatar Class Siege-Automata Maniple: Giant Monstrous Creatures that cost 250 points each but have S8, T8 and 2+ Armor save. They look freaking awesome and is the primary reason why I want to build a Mechanicum list. Just look at the incredible-looking Hellex plasma mortar on its back! That monstrous weapon fires a single Large Blast pie plate which is Barrage Ordnance at S8 AP2, and has Plasma Wave, which forces your opponent to re-roll successful cover saves. Combine this with Enhanced Targeting Array to reduce his cover saves, you can start picking up a cup to collect his tears as you spam pie plates all over his camping army. Even Terminators. Unless you have the points to spam 3 of them, you might as well split them apart into 2 Heavy Support units and give them Paragon of Metal to make sure It Will Never freaking Die. Take note the Hellex plasma mortar fires 12"-48" when stationary but only 12"-24" when he moves, so keep him at the back as a gunline and don't move him. Don't forget he can fire his twin-linked Mauler bolt cannon at Deep Striking units too near for his Hellex plasma mortar, and Indirect Fire thanks to Barrage.
Thanatar-Calix Class Siege-automata: Can only take one of him, and for 45 points more you replace your awesome Hellex plasma mortar with a single-shot Sollex pattern heavy lascannon. Sure, it fires at 60" regardless of movement and no minimum range, and it's S10 AP2, but it's only one shot. He does have a Graviton Ram that fires a Haywire template that absolutely wrecks vehicles, is Concussive against dudes who are strong enough to survive the Graviton Wave (come on, they should be), and forces them to take a Morale check. But what you want is to use his Graviton ram in melee where he has S10 AP1 attacks with Armorbane, Concussive AND Structural Collapse - which means any building or fortification he hits will suffer Destroyer hits. Unfortunately with his Lumbering Advance and inability to take a transport, I can only say good luck getting to the other side of the table with 6" movement per turn.
- This guy sucks against Infantry, as I said the Template Graviton ram will do nothing against them, and if you're dumb enough to Charge him against a blob he'll be stuck there in combat with them all game. Fortunately, the -2 Ld modifier might cause them to falter and run away from pussies, saving your big guy from a tarpit Charge. Not to mention the Dangerous Terrain you just created. Yay.
- This guy is also a death sentence against vehicles. If he gets close enough, he'll take two hull points off with his Sollex lascannon and Haywire Graviton ram, and then charge in to finish it off with 3 S10 AP1 Armorbane attacks. That is, if your opponent is stupid enough to drive his vehicles near this monster. Be careful of Transports - if the passengers spill out, they'll end up tarpitting your Thanatar for the rest of the game.
- Paragon of Metal will be essential for this guy as he will need to run off and charge a Fortification all by himself, way out of range of any cortex controller. He will also draw a lot of fire, and even at T8, W4, 2+ Armor save and 5++ invulnerable, while tanking a lot of hits, regenerating a wound with It Will Not Die will be extremely helpful. Not to mention, it'll all go to waste once he's out of cortex controller range and runs off to get tarpitted by infantry instead of heading for the Fortification or vehicle. It'll be you who will cry instead of your opponent as you watch your 300-point investment wastes his life away doing useless stuff.
- To be honest, you're better off getting a Mechanicum Indentured Knight instead of him. For just a few points more, you get a Knight Errant who's infinitely better in close combat, can reliably wreck vehicles with his S9 AP1 Thermal cannon, and move a lot faster with his 12" move and the ability to Run if necessary. Of course, the Thanatar has his advantages as he doesn't have to worry about Armored Ceramite, and has a longer range with his Sollex pattern heavy lascannon. Plus he's a Heavy Support while your Knight is a Lord of War (unless you want to take Questoris Knights as Allies, which is also a cool idea).
Thanatar-Cynis Class Siege-automata Maniple: The Forge World of Estaban III were jealous of Ryza and they tried to make a better version of Thanatar siege-automata, which in turn upset the Tech-Priests of Ryza. But lacking the intelligence and resources on plasma-arcana, they screwed up and decided to settle with a giant plasma shotgun instead. So now this Thanatar's Cynis pattern plasma ejector fires TWO shots, both of which are small Blasts, S8 AP2 with Plasma Wave. Not to mention, each Thanatar-Cynis carries TWO of these plasma ejectors, so that's 4 small Blast pie-plates raining down on your opponent - 12 if you decide to take a full maniple of 3. The downside of course, as my own Forge World of Draconis IV learned through the hard way, is that these plasma ejectors Get Hot, and can only fire at a meager range of 18". Then again, he suffers no penalty on the move, and has a 2+ Armor save, so it's not as bad as you think. Well Estaban III turned Traitor while Draconis IV is still loyal, and we aren't stupid enough to upset Ryza.
Macrocarid Explorator: Formerly the Mechanicum Land Raider in the original Horus Heresy books, Forge World decided to get creative and give the Mechanicum individuality by transforming it into a new type of Mechanicum Transport Tank. Standard Land Raider stats with AV14 on all sides and 4 Hull Points, with BS4, it comes with Blessed Autosimulacra, Machine Spirit, a mauler bolt cannon and two lascannon sponsons. It can carry 10 models, like the Land Raider, but gets a few Mechanicum-exclusive options such as the Anbaric claw, Auxiliary drive, and Explorator Augury Web, which you can see above. It also has a Servo-rig, which allows a Battlesmith embarked within to perform repairs on vehicles or automata within 3" of the vehicle's hull. Sweet! Also, like the giant servo-arm that it is, it lashes out at 3" with a single S8 AP2 attack, and you can choose some other target that you're not firing at. Awesome.
- The Macrocarid Explorator also gets some rad...um, cool weapons in place of the Space Marine Legions' armory. You can replace the mauler bolt cannon for a Volkite culverin, a multi-melta (hell, no!), a twin-linked phase plasma-fusil, a twin-linked rad cleanser (nah, we have a better option, see below), a lascannon, a conversion beamer and a graviton imploder. Nice.
- The sponson weapons also get some awesome upgrades. If you want to turn the Macrocarid Explorator into a pure Space Marine killer, keep the hull-mounted mauler bolt cannon and replace the sponson lascannons with two twin-linked mauler bolt cannons. Or if you decide to go all lascannon, swap the mauler bolt cannon with a lascannon, and replace the sponsons lascannons with sponsons TWIN-LINKED lascannons! Otherwise, if you were considering the twin-linked rad cleanser earlier, might I introduce two awesome sponsons irradiation engines instead? Mount a Volkite culverin in place of the Mauler bolt cannon and proceed to incinerate blobs. Entire hordes will utterly vanish under two torrent Fleshbane Templates, and the survivors will melt under 4 45" S6 AP5 shots with Deflagrate.
Krios Battle Tank Squadron: Pretty cool-looking tanks with front AV13, side AV12 and rear AV10. Have 3 Hull Points and fire at BS4, so not so bad, and you can take squadrons of up to 3. They're Fast Tanks and so can zoom up the field, their Galvanic Traction Drive forcing them to re-roll failed Dangerous Terrain tests, and they can be equipped with an Anbaric claw to discourage infantry from Charging them, and up to 2 Volkite Sentinels. Comes stock with Blessed Autosimulacra and a flare shield so they're tough to crack!
- The Krios Battle Tank comes standard with a lightning cannon, an upgraded version of the Thallax and Vorax battle-automata's lightning guns that pump out a S7 AP3 Rending and Shred Large Blast pie-plate at 48". But with the high amounts of AP3 you already have (mauler bolt cannons, irradiation engines, phased plasma-fusils, Knight Paladin's 3-shot S6 AP3 Questoris battle cannon), you might as well spend another 25 points to upgrade it into the...
- ...the Krios Venator Tank Destroyer, who exchanges its lightning cannon for a pulsar-fusil. This baby fires out 4 Ordnance shots at S9 AP2, but at a decreased range of 36". However, 4 S9 AP2 Ordnance shots are nothing to sneeze at, especially since you can squadron up to 3 of them and pump out twelve lascannon equivalents, melting Terminators, wrecking tanks, destroying even Super-heavy Walkers and Vehicles with consummate ease. Worth every point of the extra 75 points you chuck into it, really.
Myrmidon Destructors: Bulky infantry made for the sole purpose of destruction. They come in 3, are BS5 and have Preferred Enemy (Everything!), along with Relentless and Stubborn. They can also take a Triaros Armored Conveyor as a Dedicated Transport! Awesome! Starting from 3, you can spam up to 10 of them, but they're pretty expensive so don't get too carried away.
- You can equip them with photon thruster cannons, which is actually a good idea, considering they get Preferred Enemy and thus can re-roll those annoying Gets Hot! rolls of ones. I still think the Darkfire cannon on the Castellax is better, personally, but these guys pump out more shots (6 vs. 4) with Preferred Enemy at BS5 for a cheaper price, so apart from the S6 against the Darkfire's S7, they have the Castellax beat in every way.
- Conversion beamers are meh...you're better off sticking them on a Reductor Tech-priest Auxillia or a Magos Ordinator, unless you're confident your opponent will be playing a gunline and sitting back for the whole game.
- Graviton imploders are awesome, they are your go-to for anti-Terminators weaponry. If you take them, make sure to give them transport in the form of a Triaros Armored Conveyor or the 18" means they will likely be out of range for the most part. Still, 12 graviton shots per unit is enough to make those Terminators weep.
- Volkite culverins are awesome and long-range, you can park your Destructors at the back and rain down 12 S6 AP5 Deflagrate shots on the slowly advancing blob to wipe them out, doing quite possibly double the wounds as you put out! No need to fear that Emperor's Shield Infantry Platoon advancing toward you now!
- Irradiation engines are another excellent choice, with their Torrent Templates and AP3 Fleshbane absolutely wrecking everything from Space Marines to blobs. 1d4chan says it's overkill and suggest you include a Graviton imploder or a Photon thruster to kill the Terminator or 2+ save character first before incinerating the Space Marines cowering behind him like pussies. Make sure to throw them into a Triaros to negate that short range!
- They may have a power fist each to double their Strength to 8, but try not to get them into combat. They're not bad against most units, including Tactical squads, but with only 2 attacks base, they'll get mulched by dedicated Assault squads.
HEAVY SUPPORT
Thanatar Class Siege-Automata Maniple: Giant Monstrous Creatures that cost 250 points each but have S8, T8 and 2+ Armor save. They look freaking awesome and is the primary reason why I want to build a Mechanicum list. Just look at the incredible-looking Hellex plasma mortar on its back! That monstrous weapon fires a single Large Blast pie plate which is Barrage Ordnance at S8 AP2, and has Plasma Wave, which forces your opponent to re-roll successful cover saves. Combine this with Enhanced Targeting Array to reduce his cover saves, you can start picking up a cup to collect his tears as you spam pie plates all over his camping army. Even Terminators. Unless you have the points to spam 3 of them, you might as well split them apart into 2 Heavy Support units and give them Paragon of Metal to make sure It Will Never freaking Die. Take note the Hellex plasma mortar fires 12"-48" when stationary but only 12"-24" when he moves, so keep him at the back as a gunline and don't move him. Don't forget he can fire his twin-linked Mauler bolt cannon at Deep Striking units too near for his Hellex plasma mortar, and Indirect Fire thanks to Barrage.
Thanatar-Calix Class Siege-automata: Can only take one of him, and for 45 points more you replace your awesome Hellex plasma mortar with a single-shot Sollex pattern heavy lascannon. Sure, it fires at 60" regardless of movement and no minimum range, and it's S10 AP2, but it's only one shot. He does have a Graviton Ram that fires a Haywire template that absolutely wrecks vehicles, is Concussive against dudes who are strong enough to survive the Graviton Wave (come on, they should be), and forces them to take a Morale check. But what you want is to use his Graviton ram in melee where he has S10 AP1 attacks with Armorbane, Concussive AND Structural Collapse - which means any building or fortification he hits will suffer Destroyer hits. Unfortunately with his Lumbering Advance and inability to take a transport, I can only say good luck getting to the other side of the table with 6" movement per turn.
- This guy sucks against Infantry, as I said the Template Graviton ram will do nothing against them, and if you're dumb enough to Charge him against a blob he'll be stuck there in combat with them all game. Fortunately, the -2 Ld modifier might cause them to falter and run away from pussies, saving your big guy from a tarpit Charge. Not to mention the Dangerous Terrain you just created. Yay.
- This guy is also a death sentence against vehicles. If he gets close enough, he'll take two hull points off with his Sollex lascannon and Haywire Graviton ram, and then charge in to finish it off with 3 S10 AP1 Armorbane attacks. That is, if your opponent is stupid enough to drive his vehicles near this monster. Be careful of Transports - if the passengers spill out, they'll end up tarpitting your Thanatar for the rest of the game.
- Paragon of Metal will be essential for this guy as he will need to run off and charge a Fortification all by himself, way out of range of any cortex controller. He will also draw a lot of fire, and even at T8, W4, 2+ Armor save and 5++ invulnerable, while tanking a lot of hits, regenerating a wound with It Will Not Die will be extremely helpful. Not to mention, it'll all go to waste once he's out of cortex controller range and runs off to get tarpitted by infantry instead of heading for the Fortification or vehicle. It'll be you who will cry instead of your opponent as you watch your 300-point investment wastes his life away doing useless stuff.
- To be honest, you're better off getting a Mechanicum Indentured Knight instead of him. For just a few points more, you get a Knight Errant who's infinitely better in close combat, can reliably wreck vehicles with his S9 AP1 Thermal cannon, and move a lot faster with his 12" move and the ability to Run if necessary. Of course, the Thanatar has his advantages as he doesn't have to worry about Armored Ceramite, and has a longer range with his Sollex pattern heavy lascannon. Plus he's a Heavy Support while your Knight is a Lord of War (unless you want to take Questoris Knights as Allies, which is also a cool idea).
Thanatar-Cynis Class Siege-automata Maniple: The Forge World of Estaban III were jealous of Ryza and they tried to make a better version of Thanatar siege-automata, which in turn upset the Tech-Priests of Ryza. But lacking the intelligence and resources on plasma-arcana, they screwed up and decided to settle with a giant plasma shotgun instead. So now this Thanatar's Cynis pattern plasma ejector fires TWO shots, both of which are small Blasts, S8 AP2 with Plasma Wave. Not to mention, each Thanatar-Cynis carries TWO of these plasma ejectors, so that's 4 small Blast pie-plates raining down on your opponent - 12 if you decide to take a full maniple of 3. The downside of course, as my own Forge World of Draconis IV learned through the hard way, is that these plasma ejectors Get Hot, and can only fire at a meager range of 18". Then again, he suffers no penalty on the move, and has a 2+ Armor save, so it's not as bad as you think. Well Estaban III turned Traitor while Draconis IV is still loyal, and we aren't stupid enough to upset Ryza.
Macrocarid Explorator: Formerly the Mechanicum Land Raider in the original Horus Heresy books, Forge World decided to get creative and give the Mechanicum individuality by transforming it into a new type of Mechanicum Transport Tank. Standard Land Raider stats with AV14 on all sides and 4 Hull Points, with BS4, it comes with Blessed Autosimulacra, Machine Spirit, a mauler bolt cannon and two lascannon sponsons. It can carry 10 models, like the Land Raider, but gets a few Mechanicum-exclusive options such as the Anbaric claw, Auxiliary drive, and Explorator Augury Web, which you can see above. It also has a Servo-rig, which allows a Battlesmith embarked within to perform repairs on vehicles or automata within 3" of the vehicle's hull. Sweet! Also, like the giant servo-arm that it is, it lashes out at 3" with a single S8 AP2 attack, and you can choose some other target that you're not firing at. Awesome.
- The Macrocarid Explorator also gets some rad...um, cool weapons in place of the Space Marine Legions' armory. You can replace the mauler bolt cannon for a Volkite culverin, a multi-melta (hell, no!), a twin-linked phase plasma-fusil, a twin-linked rad cleanser (nah, we have a better option, see below), a lascannon, a conversion beamer and a graviton imploder. Nice.
- The sponson weapons also get some awesome upgrades. If you want to turn the Macrocarid Explorator into a pure Space Marine killer, keep the hull-mounted mauler bolt cannon and replace the sponson lascannons with two twin-linked mauler bolt cannons. Or if you decide to go all lascannon, swap the mauler bolt cannon with a lascannon, and replace the sponsons lascannons with sponsons TWIN-LINKED lascannons! Otherwise, if you were considering the twin-linked rad cleanser earlier, might I introduce two awesome sponsons irradiation engines instead? Mount a Volkite culverin in place of the Mauler bolt cannon and proceed to incinerate blobs. Entire hordes will utterly vanish under two torrent Fleshbane Templates, and the survivors will melt under 4 45" S6 AP5 shots with Deflagrate.
Krios Battle Tank Squadron: Pretty cool-looking tanks with front AV13, side AV12 and rear AV10. Have 3 Hull Points and fire at BS4, so not so bad, and you can take squadrons of up to 3. They're Fast Tanks and so can zoom up the field, their Galvanic Traction Drive forcing them to re-roll failed Dangerous Terrain tests, and they can be equipped with an Anbaric claw to discourage infantry from Charging them, and up to 2 Volkite Sentinels. Comes stock with Blessed Autosimulacra and a flare shield so they're tough to crack!
- The Krios Battle Tank comes standard with a lightning cannon, an upgraded version of the Thallax and Vorax battle-automata's lightning guns that pump out a S7 AP3 Rending and Shred Large Blast pie-plate at 48". But with the high amounts of AP3 you already have (mauler bolt cannons, irradiation engines, phased plasma-fusils, Knight Paladin's 3-shot S6 AP3 Questoris battle cannon), you might as well spend another 25 points to upgrade it into the...
- ...the Krios Venator Tank Destroyer, who exchanges its lightning cannon for a pulsar-fusil. This baby fires out 4 Ordnance shots at S9 AP2, but at a decreased range of 36". However, 4 S9 AP2 Ordnance shots are nothing to sneeze at, especially since you can squadron up to 3 of them and pump out twelve lascannon equivalents, melting Terminators, wrecking tanks, destroying even Super-heavy Walkers and Vehicles with consummate ease. Worth every point of the extra 75 points you chuck into it, really.
Myrmidon Destructors: Bulky infantry made for the sole purpose of destruction. They come in 3, are BS5 and have Preferred Enemy (Everything!), along with Relentless and Stubborn. They can also take a Triaros Armored Conveyor as a Dedicated Transport! Awesome! Starting from 3, you can spam up to 10 of them, but they're pretty expensive so don't get too carried away.
- You can equip them with photon thruster cannons, which is actually a good idea, considering they get Preferred Enemy and thus can re-roll those annoying Gets Hot! rolls of ones. I still think the Darkfire cannon on the Castellax is better, personally, but these guys pump out more shots (6 vs. 4) with Preferred Enemy at BS5 for a cheaper price, so apart from the S6 against the Darkfire's S7, they have the Castellax beat in every way.
- Conversion beamers are meh...you're better off sticking them on a Reductor Tech-priest Auxillia or a Magos Ordinator, unless you're confident your opponent will be playing a gunline and sitting back for the whole game.
- Graviton imploders are awesome, they are your go-to for anti-Terminators weaponry. If you take them, make sure to give them transport in the form of a Triaros Armored Conveyor or the 18" means they will likely be out of range for the most part. Still, 12 graviton shots per unit is enough to make those Terminators weep.
- Volkite culverins are awesome and long-range, you can park your Destructors at the back and rain down 12 S6 AP5 Deflagrate shots on the slowly advancing blob to wipe them out, doing quite possibly double the wounds as you put out! No need to fear that Emperor's Shield Infantry Platoon advancing toward you now!
- Irradiation engines are another excellent choice, with their Torrent Templates and AP3 Fleshbane absolutely wrecking everything from Space Marines to blobs. 1d4chan says it's overkill and suggest you include a Graviton imploder or a Photon thruster to kill the Terminator or 2+ save character first before incinerating the Space Marines cowering behind him like pussies. Make sure to throw them into a Triaros to negate that short range!
- They may have a power fist each to double their Strength to 8, but try not to get them into combat. They're not bad against most units, including Tactical squads, but with only 2 attacks base, they'll get mulched by dedicated Assault squads.
Karacnos Assault Tank: Mechanicum tanks that fire radioactive warheads. Armed with two Lightning blaster sentinels, which fire 3 Strength 7 AP5 shots with Shred and Rending from 18" range each, his main armament is the Karacnos mortar battery that fires 3 Strength 5 AP 4 small blasts (3") with Barrage, Fleshbane, Rad-phage, Ignores Cover and Pinning from 60" away. Cool, I guess? It's a decent anti-infantry weapon. He carries Hazardous Munitions, which means he explodes harder. So watch out!
Questoris Knight Armiger Talon: We can take Armiger Knights from 40K as a 0-1 Heavy Support Choice in a Mechanicum Taghmata Detachment! Hooray! That means we can take 1-3 of these baby Knights in a single slot, starting from 175 points but an additional 150 points for each subsequent one. They are essentially Dreadnoughts with 4 Hull points, but AV12 on front and side, and AV11 on the rear. They can take a 5-point heavy stubber or 15-point meltagun for carapace weapons, and swap any of their "close-combat Dreadnought weapons (what?!)" for an Armiger thermal spear (10 points) or Armiger autocannon. The former is a single shot Strength 8 AP2 at 36" range with melta, and the latter has two modes for their Heavy 2 64" Strength 7 AP 3 autocannon shells: armor-piercing rounds that have the Sunder rule, or incendiary rounds that Ignores Cover. You can give their heavy stubbers bio-corrosive rounds for 10 points for Poisoned (4+), but considering that you'll be wounding most Toughness 4 Space Marines with the Strength 4 AP6 heavy stubbers on 4+s anyway, it's usually a waste of points unless your opponent brings lots of Monstrous Creatures (but they will have Cybernetic Resilience, so...). Still a pretty good choice, very flexible and fast. Oh, and they have an ion buckler that gives them a 5++ invulnerable save without worrying about facing. So no more arguing on where your opponent is shooting from.
Mechanicum Knight Moirax Talon: Similar to the normal Armiger Knights, we can take a Mechanicum Knight Moriax Talon as a Heavy Support choice in any Mechanicum Detachment without worrying about the 0-1 limitations. Yay. Starting at 185 points, you can take up to 3 in one slot, with each additional Knight Moirax weighing in at 155 points. Like the Armiger Knight above, he has front and side AV12 and rear AV11, and 4 Hull Points. Basically a Dreadnought, then. But unlike the regular Armiger Knights, the Armiger Knight Moriax have 2 Construct Shields that have an AV11. So mini-void shields that collapse and don't come back online once they are taken out. They also have an ionic flare shield that gives them a 5++ invulnerable save without worrying about facings, plus reduce the Strength of non-Destroyer and non-Haywire blast and Template weapons by 1.
- They have a sweet suite of weapons to choose from for their arms. Any 2 would be amazing, but since this is Horus Heresy and you can only shoot both weapons at the same target because the Armiger Knight Moirax is not a super-heavy walker (he can get immobilized - both Armiger Moirax Knights in my talon got immobilized when I rolled two ones in a row when traversing difficult terrain, damn), you might as well take the same weapon for both arms. That said, it's a good idea to keep one as a melee weapon in case of close encounters.
- - The Gyes Siege Claw is your melee weapon that hits at Strength 10 (yeah, Strength 7 x2, but caps at Strength 10), AP2 and has Wrecker. It comes with an in-built rad cleanser that is a Template Strength 2 AP 5 weapon with Fleshbane and Rad-phage, so pretty cool especially against infantry. If your Armiger Knight Moirax is armed with the claw, though, you should be charging vehicles with him, so it's kind of hard to choose between shooting that rad-cleanser at infantry or just shooting it at a vehicle and then charging it.
- - Lightning Locks are 36" range Small Blast (3") Strength 6 AP 3 with Rending. Not bad, especially against Space Marines. But nothing fantastic either, I think, especially when you compare it with the 40K rules.
- - Graviton Pulsars have a shorter range at 24", but fires 2 small blasts (3") with Concussive, Graviton Pulse and Haywire. A death sentence against vehicles if you don't scatter. AP4 is okay, but sucks against power armor and Terminator armor. Plus Graviton Pulse means you have to roll a D6 and hope it's above the target's Toughness, so you have 1/3 chance of wounding a Toughness 4 Space Marine, who will have 2/3 chance of saving the wound (5/6 for Terminators). So point that weapon at vehicles instead of armored infanty. On the other hand, turning their position into Dangerous Terrain might be hilarious.
- - Volkite Veuglaires, my personal favorite. An upgunned version of the volkite culverin, this baby fires 5...yes, five, Strength 6 AP4 Deflagrate shots from 36" range. The amount of dakka means that even Space Marines would buckle from the superheated Martian death rays.
- - Armiger Conversion Beam Cannon...a miniaturized version of the conversion beam cannons mounted on the super-heavy Acastus Knight Asterius. Up to 18" is a small blast (3") Strength 6 AP - shot, which does nothing much but tickle infantry (well, might be cool against Militia infantry, I guess?). 18" to 42" is a bit better, improving to Strength 8 AP 4, so goodbye Solar Auxilia. But you want to keep your target as far away as 42"-72" for that's where the Strength 10 AP1 small blast will really kick in. Though at that point, you might as well be firing at vehicles and rolling on the vehicle damage table for that sweet explosion (I doubt Terminators would ever end up more than 42" away from your Armiger Knight Moirax, or your opponent is playing them wrong).
FORTIFICATION
Imperial Castellum Stronghold: A highly expensive Fortification that's worth its points, providing an invulnerable save through Shielded Gate Barriers, and the options to stuff about 5 different weapons on it, like twin-linked heavy bolter, twin-linked heavy flamer, twin-linked lascannon, multi-melta with searchlight, Hyperios missile launcher, Whirlwind launcher, an Icarus lascannon or a quad gun. You ca even upgrade it with a Hyperios command platform that allows all Skyfire weapons to fire at BS3 and ignore the Automated Fire to target Flyers and Fast Skimmers instead of the closest models. Throw in a comms relay to bring in your Reserves faster or a Hostile signal jammer to force enemy Deep Strikers to mishap on a 4+ if they try to get within 12" of your fortress. Mostly AV14. and so pretty hard to take down. If you bring a Magos Macrotek, you can two of these and annoy your opponent to no end as you camp inside there and fire long-range fire at his units.
LORDS OF WAR
Ordinatus-Minoris Macro Engine: Apparently a "minor" engine that the Centurio Ordinatus runs, because the colossal Ordinatus Primaris like Mars and Endymion are...as huge as continents, maybe. But these guys are sstill gargantuan, and as part of the Centurio Ordinatus, their role is super-heavy artillery that can level cities with their cannons. There are two versions, the Ordinatus Sagittar and the Ordinatus Ulator, and both come with three tureet-mounted volkite culverins, Blessed Autosimulacra, Anabaric claw, an Ordinatus dispersion shield and an Armored Ceramite. As with all Super-heavies, it's incredibly tough, packing a AV14 front with AV13 on the sides and rear and a whooping FOURTEEN Hull Points. Where's your Titans now, huh? Fires at BS4 too, yay. As if that wasn't enough, its Ordinatus Dispersion Shield will have your opponent gnashing his teeth and tearing his hair out (if he had any to begin with) because on the first turn, the strength of shooting attacks AND the roll results of Destroyer weapons are nerfed by -3 against this guy. On the 2nd turn, it goes down to -2 because apparently the powerful shields require so much energy it causes a strain on its generators and causes the protection to degrade over time as its elements begin to burn out. That said, it goes down to -1 on the third and subsequent turns, so maybe the generators didn't spoil after all. The Omnissiah protects.
- The Ordinatus Sagittar is equipped with one Belicosa pattern volcano cannon, the same one mounted on the Warlord Titan's arms, which fires a Strength D AP1 Apocalyptic Blast that destroys machines and evetything else at a whooping range of 180". Hell, yeah. A souped up version of a Shadowsword, or a Baneblade, if you will (I think Shadowsword is more appropriate). At 700 points, however, you're not going to be able to bring this to standard-sized games except 2,800 points and above. The alternative, as I said above, is to just bring a Leviathan Force Organization Chart, and fill in the remaining points or so with high-cost Legio Cybernetica automata (with the limited number of slots, why not?).
- On the other hand, the Ordinatus Ulator is made purely for Apocalypse games, and if you ever bring it to a casual game, do it against someone you hold a grudge against. Its Ulator Class Sonic Destructor fires a 72" range, Pinning, Armorbane, Instant Death and Ignores Cover Massive Blast pie plate (7" if you don't get the drift). No, it doesn't end there. Its Ulator Sonice Wave have you placing the Massive Blast marker on the edge of your firing model's forward hull, and then you move it in a straight line away from your Ulator and toward your enemy until its maximum range (72"). All the models the pie-plate passes over EVEN if it's just partially, suffers a number of automatic hits equal to the number of models the pie-plate swam over. Even Flyers and Flying Creatures aren't safe from this, and count as being hit if your pie-plate passes through their bases. Beware of friendly fire, though - your own units also count as being hit if the pie-plate flies across them.
- - The strength of the weapon's hit is determined by the type of the model it strikes, as listed below:
- - - Infantry, including jump pack and jet pack infantry, at S5
- - - Bikes, Jetbikes, Beasts and Cavalry at S5
- - - Monstrous Creatures and Vehicles at S8
- - - Vehicles with the Tank type at S10
- - - Super-heavy vehicles (all types) at Strength D
- - - Gargantuan Creatures (all types) at Strength D
- - - Buildings and Fortifications at Strength D
- Keep in mind that as with the Ordinatus Sagittar, the only way to bring this 1,075-point monster to a standard game is to use the Leviathan Force Organization Chart, either playing him by himself or allying a small detachment of Mechanicum (or Space Marine Legions) in. Just as well, as his Ulator Sonic Wave will end up hitting and killing them anyway if you accidentally deployed them in front of him. To make your opponent rage even further - and this is possible even in a 2,000-point or even 1,850-point game, you can ally in Questoris Knights. Put one Seneschal and a Scion Martial and watch your opponent froth at the mouth. For 1,850-point games, two Questoris Knights Paladin, one as Lord Scion and the other as Scion Martial, will do very nicely, or if you could swap one Paladin out for a Questoris Knight Errant with bio-corrosive rounds to exterminate those nasty Terminators who are Deep Striking in your backfield. Remember to park both Questoris Knights behind or beside your Sagittar or you'll end up blowing them up with Strength D hits when you "accidentally" clip them with your Sonic Wave. 2 Knights Paladin raining down 6 S6 AP3 pie plates from 72" to mop up the remains of your opponent's army is a great idea, if merciless. I personally would advise against it, though, if you want to continue playing with your friends.
Mechanicum Indentured Knights
Hard to say if you're better off bringing Questoris Knights as allies, so it really depends on your list. If you want 2 or more Knights, then yes, probably a good idea to bring Questoris Knights as allies instead (or have your Mechanicum be allies to your Questoris Knight's Primary Detachment if you don't need that many Troops). If you're only bringing one Knight, then perhaps consider putting him in your vacant Lord of War slot (unless you're playing over 2,800-points and want to put in an Ordinatus Sagittar instead, then might as well bring two Questoris Knights as allies - it's still legal! But unfriendly). What do Mechanicum Indentured Knights get that their Questoris counterparts don't? Blessed Autosimulacra, the weaker form of It Will Not Die, for 10 points. The exception is Cerastus Knight Atropos, which already comes with Blessed Autosimulacra, and isn't in the book so just as well.
Mechanicum Indentured Knight Errant: He comes with a Strength 9 AP 1 Large Blast (5") Thermal cannon, heavy stubber that can be swapped for a meltagun, Strength D Reaper chainsword and an ion shield. As with his Questoris counterpart, he gets the occular augmetics option and can upgrade his heavy stubber with bio-corrosive rounds that shoot at 6" less but with Poisoned (4+). Good against Terminators, good against vehicles. As stated above, the Mechanicum Indentured gets Blessed Autosimulacra for 10 points if you so desire. Has 3 choices of caparace weapons like all plastic Questoris Knights (meaning not the Knight Styrix and Magaera), which ranges from the 72" Ironstorm missile pod that fires a large blast Strength 5 AP4...with Ordnance for some reason (no Barrage or Ignores Cover...what?), the 48" range Stormspear rocket pod that fires 3 Krak missiles (Strength 8 AP 3), to the 48" range Icarus twin autocannon that fires two twin-linked shots at Strength 7 AP4 with Skyfire. So if your opponents bring a ton of aircraft (like Fire Raptors), you can try to bring them down with the Icarus autocannon.
Mechanicum Indentured Knight Paladin: Same as above, almost the same as his 40K version in 7th edition (how time flies, it's already 9th edition). Almost. Instead of the normal rapid-fire battlecannon that we all know and love, we can exchange that 2-shot Ordnance S8 AP3 Large Blast for a 3-shot Ordnance S6 AP3 Large Blast, both at a range of 72". I personally like the 3-shot better for more dakka. Except that when I played him in reality, the Strength 8 variant did a lot better...especially against vehicles and Titans. Well...funny how things work out sometimes. Also gets access to occular augmetics for night-fighting, but quite a meh upgrade, and for some reason the bio-corrosive rounds for his heavy stubber is 2 times more expensive than the Knight Errant - EACH, so it's actually 4 times more expensive if you upgrade both. Argh. Still worth it, maybe, if you're up against Monstrous Creatures and high Toughness units. In any case, a very flexible Knight with much-needed long-range weaponry that you can tailor to be a complete Space Marine killer with his Questoris battle cannon, or capable of performing anti-vehicle duties and Instant Death-ing Space Marines with his rapid-fire battle cannon if you so prefer. Can also take carapace weapons, so people tend to take the Ironstorm missile pod to complement the 72" range of the battle cannon.
Questoris Knight Warden: Dakka. Just...dakka. You know why you're getting him...that sweet Avenger Gatling cannon that fires 12 Strength 6 AP3 shots with Rending. This guy is a Legiones Astartes killer. Oh, and if that wasn't enough, it comes with a heavy flamer! Though the only reason why you'd take a Knight Warden over a Knight Crusader is if you want that Strength D Reaper chainsword or Thunderstrike gauntlet. Which makes sense, given the Primarchs, Titans and other super-heavies running around in Horus Heresy. Can take carapace weapons as well, so if you need anti-air in a pinch, grab an Icarus twin autocannon and dakka the aircraft in question to death.
Questoris Knight Crusader: The dakka Knight. Armed with the same Avenger Gatling cannon as the Knight Warden above, he swaps out his melee weapon for either a thermal cannon or a rapid-fire battle cannon. The ideal bulwark for your army, plant him in your deployment zone and have him hose Legionnes Astartes down with 12 Strength 6 AP 2 Rending shots or blow them up with the battle cannon. The thermal cannon is good against vehicles (even if they have Armored Ceramite, Strength 9 is nothing to scoff at) AND Terminators. And trust me, you need all the anti-Terminator weaponry, especially since people love their Rites of War that give them Terminator Troops. One of the best support Knights. He's no slouch in melee either, with Strength 10 AP2 attacks in close combat (thanks to Smash rule that comes with super-heavy walkers) and Stomp, so don't be afraid to charge him in. Unless the other party is a Primarch, then...yeah, keep him far away from the Primarch as possible and shoot him from afar. The carapace weapons might depend on what armanents you take for this guy. A battle cannon? Perhaps the 72" Ironstorm missile pod might suit your Marine-hunting task well. A thermal cannon? Then maybe the Stormspear rocket pod would be better for ant-tank. And if you're desperate for anti-air, then Icarus twin autocannon would do the job well.
Questoris Knight Gallant: The choppy Knight. Dedicated close-combat Knight armed with a Reaper chainsword and Thunderstrike gauntlet, that means he has an additional attack (so 5 on the charge, yay). Given that they are Strength D, anything you send him into combat with is most likely dead. Unless it's a Primarch, then you better pray you roll 6s on the Destroyer table. Heh. Also the cheapest, so if you happen to be playing an Questoris Knight Crusade list (like me), that's where you can spare the points. I think. Usually don't take carapace weapons for this guy (because you're obviously taking him to cut down on points, and the cheapest Ironstorm missile pod is at 30 points, the Icarus autocannon at 35 and the Stormspear rocket pod is at a whooping 45 points, which is probably the only thing you would take to complement the Strength D weapons against a tank or vehicle).
Mechanicum Indentured Knight Styrix: Already blessed with Blessed Autosimulacra, this fellow comes with a graviton gun for Haywire, an ionic flare shield that reduces the strength of shooting attacks by -1 and -2 if it's a Blast or Template weapon (no effect on Haywire or Destroyer attacks, though) in addition to a 4++ invulnerable save and can be upgraded with a Hekaton siege claw with a twin-linked rad cleanser. But his most noteworthy weapon is the Volkite chieorovile, which fires 5 Heavy S8 AP3 Deflagrate shots at 45". A Space Marine killer, he can be awesome in a gunline, but not so good in melee with I2, so keep him at the back and wipe out those annoying Marine squads! With Deflagrate, he can potentially kill twice as many Marines as he hits!
Mechanicum Indentured Knight Magaera: What happens when a Thallax evolves? He becomes a Knight Magaera! As with above, he has an ionic flare shield and Blesed Autosimulacra and the option to upgrade his reaper chainsword into a Hakaton siege claw with twin-linked rad cleanser, but that's as far as the similarities end. He has the same lightning cannon as the Krios Battle Tank, firing a S7 AP3 Large Blast with Shred and Rending at 48". In place of a graviton gun, he has a phased plasma-fusil, and this makes him another Space Marine killer. As with the Knight Styrix, he's not so hot in combat with I2, and should also keep his distance. I've no idea which is better, but this guy has Shred and Rending at least while the other one has Deflagrate, so it depends if you want to stack the number of wounds, or you're worried about wounding something.
Mechanicum Indentured Cerastus Knight-Lancer: Cerastus Knights have the Blessed Autosimulacra upgrade for 10 points, if you want, and Flank Speed, which allows them to make a 3D6" Run during the Shoting phase. The Lancer excels at killing Characters and Gargantuan Creatures, you want this guy to get into close combat to prod things to death with his Strength D Cerastus shock lance. Swift Strike gives him +1 to Initiative when he Charges into combat, and his ion gauntlet shield protects him in close combat at 5++ at the cost of not being able to cover his rear against shooting (still gets 4++ against shooting on the front and sides, though). He also forces close combat attacks by other Super-heavy Walkers and Gargantuan Creatures to suffer a -1 to hit, which is sweet. His shooting is decent, with 6 S7 AP2 Concussive Heavy attacks at 18" for killing Terminators.
Mechanicum Indentured Cerastus Knight-Castigator: As with above, he has Flank Speed and can get both Blessed Autosimulacra and occular augmetics for 10 points each. Unlike the Lancer, he has an ion shield and a Castigator-pattern bolt cannon that fires 8 S7 AP3 Heavy shots at 36", more rounds than the Knight Styrix but without Deflagrate and the extra 9" range. His Tempest warblade is the only Knight close combat weapon without Strength D, being S10 AP2 instead but with Deflagrate, Tempest Attack and Sunder. Can kill blobs with Deflagrate and Tempest Attack, the latter allowing the Knight to make a single special attack at I2 instead, but automatically inflicts a single hit against each model in base combat with him at S10 AP2. The tarpits will get scared off, and Deflagrate potentially kills off two times as many models as your hits.
Mechanicum Indentured Cerastus Knight-Acheron: Again, with Flank Speed and an ion shield, with occular augmetics and Blessed Autosimulacra options, but has a Strength D Reaper chainfist with an inbuilt twin-linked heavy bolter. This guy is different in that he uses an Acheron pattern flame cannon that uses a Hellstorm template to dish out S7 AP3 Ordnance attacks. Unlike the Knight-Castigator, this guy can roast blobs without needing to get into combat, and can even wreck vehicles with the high strength and Ordnance Hellstorm he unleashes on them. He's also decent in close combat, but if you do so you might want to Charge stuff with an Armor value to make full use of his Machine Destroyer Reaper chainfist. He's not a bad choice, and is flexible like the Knight Paladin.
Mechanicum Cerastus Knight-Atrapos: An amazing Knight who can take down Warhound Titans if you're lucky (my Knight Atrapos actually rolled 6s on his singularity cannon AND the vortex that resulted from it), he's the only one who actually benefits from the occular augmetics upgrade, which allows him to re-roll ones on the Destroyer table for his shooting attack at less than 12". And the maximum range of his weapon is 8". Yay. This guy's Atrapos lascutter fires an 8" beam at Strength D AP2, and can also be used in melee as a Strength D AP1 Wrecker close combat weapon. He also carries a Graviton singularity cannon that fires at 36" range with a S8 AP2 Armorbane and Concussive Large Blast. Not only that, it has the Collapsing Singularity rule, which basically means you open up a Black Hole on a roll of 6, planting a Vortex right on top of the target. Be careful, on a roll of 1, the Knight-Atrapos loses a Hull Point with no saves allowed (ouch!). Being a Super-heavy and Gargantuan Creature hunter, he has Macro-extinction Targeting Protocols, which turns all his shooting attacks against them Twin-linked! Beware, if he dies, his Catastrophic Destruction adds +2 to the Catastrophic Damage table, so you don't want any friendly units around when he blows. Good for kamikaze-ing him into a horde of enemies PLUS Superheavies/Gargantuan Creatures, and laugh when he dies as he leaves a Strength D explosion right in those 5 stupid Wraithknights' faces.
Mechanicum Indentured Knight Styrix: Already blessed with Blessed Autosimulacra, this fellow comes with a graviton gun for Haywire, an ionic flare shield that reduces the strength of shooting attacks by -1 and -2 if it's a Blast or Template weapon (no effect on Haywire or Destroyer attacks, though) in addition to a 4++ invulnerable save and can be upgraded with a Hekaton siege claw with a twin-linked rad cleanser. But his most noteworthy weapon is the Volkite chieorovile, which fires 5 Heavy S8 AP3 Deflagrate shots at 45". A Space Marine killer, he can be awesome in a gunline, but not so good in melee with I2, so keep him at the back and wipe out those annoying Marine squads! With Deflagrate, he can potentially kill twice as many Marines as he hits!
Mechanicum Indentured Knight Magaera: What happens when a Thallax evolves? He becomes a Knight Magaera! As with above, he has an ionic flare shield and Blesed Autosimulacra and the option to upgrade his reaper chainsword into a Hakaton siege claw with twin-linked rad cleanser, but that's as far as the similarities end. He has the same lightning cannon as the Krios Battle Tank, firing a S7 AP3 Large Blast with Shred and Rending at 48". In place of a graviton gun, he has a phased plasma-fusil, and this makes him another Space Marine killer. As with the Knight Styrix, he's not so hot in combat with I2, and should also keep his distance. I've no idea which is better, but this guy has Shred and Rending at least while the other one has Deflagrate, so it depends if you want to stack the number of wounds, or you're worried about wounding something.
Mechanicum Indentured Cerastus Knight-Lancer: Cerastus Knights have the Blessed Autosimulacra upgrade for 10 points, if you want, and Flank Speed, which allows them to make a 3D6" Run during the Shoting phase. The Lancer excels at killing Characters and Gargantuan Creatures, you want this guy to get into close combat to prod things to death with his Strength D Cerastus shock lance. Swift Strike gives him +1 to Initiative when he Charges into combat, and his ion gauntlet shield protects him in close combat at 5++ at the cost of not being able to cover his rear against shooting (still gets 4++ against shooting on the front and sides, though). He also forces close combat attacks by other Super-heavy Walkers and Gargantuan Creatures to suffer a -1 to hit, which is sweet. His shooting is decent, with 6 S7 AP2 Concussive Heavy attacks at 18" for killing Terminators.
Mechanicum Indentured Cerastus Knight-Castigator: As with above, he has Flank Speed and can get both Blessed Autosimulacra and occular augmetics for 10 points each. Unlike the Lancer, he has an ion shield and a Castigator-pattern bolt cannon that fires 8 S7 AP3 Heavy shots at 36", more rounds than the Knight Styrix but without Deflagrate and the extra 9" range. His Tempest warblade is the only Knight close combat weapon without Strength D, being S10 AP2 instead but with Deflagrate, Tempest Attack and Sunder. Can kill blobs with Deflagrate and Tempest Attack, the latter allowing the Knight to make a single special attack at I2 instead, but automatically inflicts a single hit against each model in base combat with him at S10 AP2. The tarpits will get scared off, and Deflagrate potentially kills off two times as many models as your hits.
Mechanicum Indentured Cerastus Knight-Acheron: Again, with Flank Speed and an ion shield, with occular augmetics and Blessed Autosimulacra options, but has a Strength D Reaper chainfist with an inbuilt twin-linked heavy bolter. This guy is different in that he uses an Acheron pattern flame cannon that uses a Hellstorm template to dish out S7 AP3 Ordnance attacks. Unlike the Knight-Castigator, this guy can roast blobs without needing to get into combat, and can even wreck vehicles with the high strength and Ordnance Hellstorm he unleashes on them. He's also decent in close combat, but if you do so you might want to Charge stuff with an Armor value to make full use of his Machine Destroyer Reaper chainfist. He's not a bad choice, and is flexible like the Knight Paladin.
Mechanicum Cerastus Knight-Atrapos: An amazing Knight who can take down Warhound Titans if you're lucky (my Knight Atrapos actually rolled 6s on his singularity cannon AND the vortex that resulted from it), he's the only one who actually benefits from the occular augmetics upgrade, which allows him to re-roll ones on the Destroyer table for his shooting attack at less than 12". And the maximum range of his weapon is 8". Yay. This guy's Atrapos lascutter fires an 8" beam at Strength D AP2, and can also be used in melee as a Strength D AP1 Wrecker close combat weapon. He also carries a Graviton singularity cannon that fires at 36" range with a S8 AP2 Armorbane and Concussive Large Blast. Not only that, it has the Collapsing Singularity rule, which basically means you open up a Black Hole on a roll of 6, planting a Vortex right on top of the target. Be careful, on a roll of 1, the Knight-Atrapos loses a Hull Point with no saves allowed (ouch!). Being a Super-heavy and Gargantuan Creature hunter, he has Macro-extinction Targeting Protocols, which turns all his shooting attacks against them Twin-linked! Beware, if he dies, his Catastrophic Destruction adds +2 to the Catastrophic Damage table, so you don't want any friendly units around when he blows. Good for kamikaze-ing him into a horde of enemies PLUS Superheavies/Gargantuan Creatures, and laugh when he dies as he leaves a Strength D explosion right in those 5 stupid Wraithknights' faces.
Acastus Knight Porphyrion: The beefiest and most destructive Knight on the block. At about 500 points, he has 8 hull points, a front armor of AV14, and is armed with two twin-linked magna lascannons, which means 2x2 Ordnance large blasts of Strength 10 AP 2 that can reach from across the table with his 72" range. Can take either lascannons or autocannons or irad-cleansers, though you might as well go all the way with las weaponry if you think about it. Also has the same Ironstorm missile pod that regular Questoris Knights have, but you can swap it for the Helios Defence missiles for anti-air if you want.
Acastus Knight Asterius: Same as the Knight Porphyrion, but instead of twin-linked magna lascannons, you get twin-linked conversion beam cannons. Oh, and radioactive warheads in the form of Karacnos mortar battery. Same as the Ironstorm missile pod, but with rad-phage and fleshbane, at the cost of a small blast instead of large blast. Wait, rad-phage? Simply means the poor victim who survives the blast gets his Toughness permanently reduced by 1 for the rest of the battle. Combine that with the two volkite culverins (4 Strength 6 AP5 Deflagrate), that's some serious anti-infantry firepower. Before I get ahead of myself, let me talk about the conversion beam cannons. They are all Strength 10 Ordnance, but like conversion beam weapons, improve over range. 0-18" gets AP3, small blast (3"). 18"-42" nets you AP2, large blast (5"), Wrecker. 42-72" gives you AP1, massive blast (7"), Wrecker AND Sunder. So essentially, whatever tank you look at from long range...dies.
LEGIO CYBERNETICA UNIT ANALYSIS
This subtype allows you to field a complete army of robots! A Rite of War for the Mechanicum, if you will, you can build a purely robot list with quite a few restrictions. Mechanicum: Taghmata Army List hit them pretty hard. Well, you still have to take a Magos Dominus or an Archmagos Dominus as your compulsory HQ, (or Archmagos Inar Satarael if you like special characters), which isn't a nerf, but the problems start right after that. The detachment's compulsory Troop choices must be made up of Castellax Battle-automata units, which is why we're taking Legio Cybernetica in the first place...but unfortunately each of these compulsory units must contain at least 2 Castellax models. EACH. Yup, your "tax" troops forces you to take 4 Castellax Battle-automata, so no more taking just 2 (1 in each slot) and giving them Paragon of Metal to run amuck. While this is the whole point of playing Legio Cybernetica in the first place, putting 4 of them instead of 2 in your army eats away at your points total and ensure you don't have space for a larger variety of units. Furthermore, Battle-automata are no longer scoring units (though you can always discuss this with your opponent and have only your Castellax count as scoring, otherwise there's no point playing when you have no way of scoring), so the disadvantage just grows. Being a Legio Cybernetica army, even your Fast Attack and Heavy Support choices must include a giant robot first before you can choose anything else. This means you can't take an Avenger Strike Fighter without taking a Vorax Battle-automata first, and you can't take Myrmidon Destructors or Krios Venators without taking a Thanatar Siege-automata first. But the whole idea of playing Legio Cybernetica is to field cool, awesome, giant robots so why are you choosing those vehicles/cyborg-but-not-fully-robot guys over your super duper Mecha in the first place? Go play vanilla Taghmata instead. The worst thing? If Legio Cybernetica is your Primary Detachment, you've to make sure your Archmagos Dominus (or any model with a Cortex Controller) survives at the end of the game. Failure to do so means your opponent gains +D3 additional Victory points. Ouch. not for the faint-hearted, and only someone as reckless as me will even consider it.
However, the buffs we receive are very significant. Our Cortex Controller and Cybertheurgy range is increased to 24", double the original distance, which makes a lot of difference and reduces the need for babysitting cortex controller Tech-Priests, and the +1 to Initiative means their melee abilities are vastly improved. As mentioned earlier, the Vorax Battle-automata now strikes at I5, wiping out squads of Space Marines before they even get to hit, and Castellax Battle-automata now hit at the same time as those Power Armored bastards (and Terminator too!). The direct opposite of Ordo Reductor, they are a very specialized army that spams Monstrous Creatures, so as 1d4chan will say, abuse Cybertheurgy to your advantage and show them the weakness of the flesh!
HQ
Archmagos Dominus: You know the Magos Dominus in Taghmata, but using Legio Cybernetica unlocks his next stage and promotes him into the Archmagos Dominus! You can only have one of him, and if you use him, no promoting your Magos Prime into an Archmagos. He's pretty expensive, but worth his points and extremely hard to kill if you kit him out properly. You're more likely to cast Cybertheurgy spells with his Ld10, and if you give him a Cyber-familiar, a machinator array and an Abeyant, he'll become a T6 W4 character with It Will Not Die and Feel No Pain (5+). And you're going to need all that because if he dies, your opponent gets an extra +D3 Victory points unless you've a couple of normal Magos Dominus or cortex controller Tech-priests hiding around somewhere in some ruins (and you conveniently forgot to tell your opponent that he's in your army. forgot to Move him, Run, Shoot or even cast Cybertheurgy powers with him the entire game).
- He's also the only Independent Character who can use the Cortica Primus relic, which weirdly enough isn't in the Mechanicum: Taghmata Army List book, to ensure a unit of 3+ Battle-automata (otherwise it isn't worth it) all receive the buffs from Cybertheurgy and become real MONSTROUS Creatures. The Vorax Battle-automata example above is one, and you can do the same for your unit of 3 Castellax Battle-automata, putting out a potential 18 attacks plus an extra 3 Hammer of Wrath, on the Charge! 21 plus 3 if you had upgraded them with Battle-automata power blades for that extra attack. Awesome. Best of all, you don't even need your Archmagos Dominus to brave melee with them as he can cast that power from 24" away!
ORDO REDUCTOR UNIT ANALYSIS
The Ordo Reductor, surprisingly enough, has the most options despite being a subtype. Interestingly enough, back in the original Horus Heresy books, they had the least options, so they stood to benefit the most from the new Mechanicum Taghmata update. YAY! The new book gives them much more viable tanks and a couple of exclusive ones, turning them from a restricted list into a very competitive army with room for abuse, thanks to their souped up Rites of War. Laugh at the Iron Warriors who deluded themselves into thinking they're the best at siege warfare. Nope, the Ordo Reductor has them beat and leaves them in the dust...quite literally, thanks to their Ordinatus engines.
Restrictions: Magos Reductor, Archmagos Reductor or Calleb Decima must be the compulsory HQ, and your compulsory Troops choices must be Mechanicum Thallax Cohorts. Well, these aren't really disadvantages as the Magos Reductor is a good support character and Thallax are among the best Troops choice in Mechanicum. On the other hand, your Battle-automata and Siege-automata cannot make up more than half your total army, so no spamming Thanatar Siege-automata and Vorax Battle-automata unless you have an equal number of tanks, vehicles and non-robot infantry.
Bonuses: Your entire army has Move Through Cover, basically. They ignore Pinning and the penalties and risks for moving or charging through difficult terrain or dangerous terrain. So your tanks no longer have to worry about immobilizing themselves! You also unlock additional units such as the above-mentioned Magos Reductor, Ordo Reductor Artillery Tank Battery and Ordo Reductor Minotaur Battery. You also gain a unique type of Primary Detachment for use with the Ordo Reductor War Convenant called the Matrix of Ruin.
MATRIX OF RUIN ARMY FORCE ORGANIZATION CHART
Primary Detachment (Required)
- Compulsory: 1 HQ, 2 Troops, 2 Heavy Support
- Optional: +1 HQ, +3 Troops, +2 Elites, +2 Fast Attack, +2 Heavy Support
Lords of War Detachment (Optional)
- 2 choices
- - Sweet, but hard to get unless you play 3,000-point games and even then you can only bring 2 Knights Paladin or Errant (in any combination) to fit under the 750-point restriction in the 30K Age of Darkness games.
No Allied detachment or Fortifications are allowed. Well, you're a destroyer not a builder, so Magos Macrotek is less useful for you.
The Unfettered Wrath of the Machine: All Tanks are scoring units when in an enemy deployment zone in Age of Darkness games, and all Tanks have Objective Secured when in an enemy deployment zone in Maelstrom of War games.
HQ
Magos Reductor: Now an Independent Character, he has better stats than a normal Magos, with WS4 and BS5! Sweet! You can promote him into an Archmagos Reductor, which increases most of his stats except BS, I and A, but allows him to automatically have Battlefield Analysis as a Warlord trait instead of needing to roll randomly. He gets exclusive options like up to 3 breacher charges and up to 3 phosphex bombs, and even a rad furnace if you want to run him around with Scyllax Guardian-automata bodyguards. His attacks also have Sunder and +1 to rolls made on Vheicle Damage and Building Damage tables. He can give these bonuses to a friendly vehicle or unit within 6" that have Heavy or Ordnance weapons, so park him right next to a squadron of Krios Venators and laugh hysterically as 12 S9 AP2 shots blow up a Super-heavy in one turn. Better yet, take a Magos Ordinator with conversion beamer and laugh louder as he kills everything with an Armorbane, Wrecker, Sunder and bonus damage table conversion beamer at 42-72". Or with that bombardment attack, if you want a bigger Area of Effect.
HEAVY SUPPORT
Ordo Reductor Artillery Tank Battery: A battery of 1-3 artillery tanks, they come stock with a Whirlwind launcher that has Vengeance and Castellan missiles, which you can swap for Hyperios air-defence missiles for free. Good thing they have BS4 so they won't miss as much as the Imperial Guard, but an AV12 front, AV10 sides and rear and 3 Hull Points mean they are relatively fragile. They are extremely flexible, and if kitted out properly, can be devastating. Siege Plating ups their front armor to AV13 for 15 points, Blessed Autosimulacra, and even hull-mounted and pintle-mounted heavy bolters and heavy flamers. All must have the same primary weapon if they're in the same battery, and they have a wide range of options which you can, and should absolutely, swap the underwhelming Whirlwind launchers for:
- Demolisher cannon: your standard Demolisher cannon that fires a devastating 24" S10 AP2 Large Blast and is 4.5 times cheaper than the Medusa that throws a similarly powerful Large Blast at a longer range.
- Quad lascannon: twin-linked double-shot lascannon. Good for anti-tank, but you might as well get a Krios Venator.
- Dual melta cannon: in case you missed your Devildog and wanted twice the anti-tank fun. The range of 24" and 12" melta range is discouraging, though.
- Earthshaker cannon: The Mechanicum gets Basilisks at a cheaper price but higher BS! How is this fair?!
- Medusa cannon: prohibitively expensive, but delivers wanton destruction at S10 AP2 at 36" with Barrage. It also has phosphex rounds, which is only S5 AP2 BUT Poisons on a 3+ and leaves a trail of Crawling Fire and the scent of Lingering Death wherever it hits. 1d4chan recommends you abuse Ordo Reductor and get 12 of these babies for overpoweredness.
- Mars-Colossus bombard: no more Ignores Cover but gets +1 Strength for a S7 AP3 Massive Blast pie-plate that has Ordnance, Concussive, Barrage and Pinning. Sounds colossally dangerous and is the most expensive of the options.
Ordo Reductor Minotaur Battery: No longer a super-heavy but costs almost as much as one, but being a Heavy Tank he can score, and you can take up to 3 of them in one squadron! Expensive if you do, though. With front and rear AV13 and side AV12, 5 Hull Points and BS4, he can take a lot of damage, and with an Armored Ceramite upgrade, can tank melta shots too. For some reason he has a rear facing flare shield so...good against Deep Strikers? And Blessed Autosimulacra. Yay. Get a pintle-mounted phased plasma-fusil and an Anabaric claw if you want, but his main weapon is the Dual Earthshaker cannon that fires a twin-linked Massive Blast Ordnance with Barrage and S9 AP3. An enhanced Basilisk, I guess, with a similar range of 24"-240". Funnily enough, he can only fire indirectly because his cannons are so huge they cannot be levelled for direct fire. Yeah, I can see why the Imperial Guard spam Basilisks instead (it's even in the fluff! They're lighter and can be mass produced in vast quantities, and there are other larger, more purpose-built super-heavy artillery which I suspect is the Ordinatus engines).
THE TITAN LEGIONS
The Titans are huge, and it's unlikely you'll ever use them in 30K games unless you play 3,000-point games. And even then, you'll only be able to fit in a single Warhound. If you want to play the Reaver Titan, you need the Leviathan Force Organization Chart, as I said for the Ordinatus-Minoris Engines. Ditto for the Warlord, but you might as well field him all by himself in the Leviathan FOC, or wait for someone to play Apocalypse with you. On the other hand, if you're bold enough to bring them to a normal 40K game, I guess someone will be friendly enough to play with you...
Hence, I put them in a different section, because they might as well be an army unto themselves. Seriously, there's no way to play them legally unless you use the Leviathan FOC, so they might as well be counted separately from the Mechanicum. And considering the fluff, they actually are a completely different military organization from the Taghmata, and much like the Skitarii, operates according to their own doctrines and traditions.
Legio Titanicus Warhound Scout Titan: The smallest Titan, as well as the cheapest, he has 2 Void Shields. 9 Hull Points encased in a front AV14, side AV13 and rear AV 12 chasis, can't be locked in assault, is completely immune to the effects of Haywire, dangerous terrain and pyschic attacks other than Witchfire powers. Has two Titan weapons, one on each arm, and can choose between a Vulcan mega-bolter, which fires 15 S6 AP3 heavy shots at 60", a Titan plasma blastgun that fires 2 modes - the rapid mode being a 72" two-shot S8 AP2 Massive Blast and overload being a 96" S10 AP2 single Apocalyptic Blast, a double-barrelled turbo laser destructor that has 2 Strength D shots that are Large Blasts and 96" range and Warhound inferno gun that throws out a Hellstorm of S7 AP3 just like the Acheron pattern flame-cannon, exept that the former is Primary Weapon and the latter is Ordnance. Pretty good for killing Space Marines and Terminators, and if in a pinch, even vehicles.
Legio Titanicus Reaver Battle Titan: The medium Titan, about twice the price of a Warhound and can still barely fit into 1,850-point or 2,000-point game if you're not that fussed about having a small allied army. He's tougher than the Warhound, and has the same immunity to Haywire, dangerous terrain and psychic powers (except Witchfire), can never be locked in an assault, but the similarities stop there. On top of having a stronger chasis of front AV14, side AV14 and rear AV13, 18 Hull Points AND 4 Void Shields, he can only be hit on a 6 by Infantry and Monstrous Creatures of any type in an assault, and on a 5 or 6 by Super-heavy Walkers and Gargantuan Creatures in an assault, as well as his carapace-mounted weapons not being able to target models closer than 18" from his hull unless they are Flyers, Flying Monstrous Creatures or other Super-heavy vehicles or Gargantuan Creatures. Wow.
- He has 2 arm-mounted Titan weapons like the Warhound, and similarly you can choose 2 of any combination from the following list:
- - Reaver gatling blaster: a 6-shot S8 AP3 Large Blast with Pinning and 72".
- - Reaver laser blaster: A super Destroyer weapon! Fires 3 Large Blasts of Strength D shots at 96"!
- - Reaver volcano cannon for an extra 50 points: Like above, but only fires a single Massive Blast of Strength D at a whooping 180". Uh...I think the laser blaster is better.
- - Reaver melta cannon: a giant melta cannon that's a S10 AP1 Apocalyptic Blast at 72", so double roll for Armor penetration for targets within 36".
- - Reaver power fist: Strength D AP1 Melee weapon, but with WS2 it'll be lucky to hit anything..,
- - Reaver chainfist for 75 points, but with WS2 I dunno what's the point...like above, Strength D AP1, but for 75 points you get Machine Destroyer, which re-rolls ones on the Destroyer table against machines. Not sure if that bonus is worth 75 points...
- He can also take the following carapace-mounted weapons:
- - Apocalypse missile launcher: Come the Apocalypse! 5-shot Apocaluptic Barrage at S7 AP3 from 24" to 360". Whee! Lots of things will die!
- - Double-barrelled turbo laser destructor: 2-shot Strength D Large Blast weapon at 96". Not bad.
- - Warhound inferno gun: Same as above in Warhound's options, Hellstorm, S7 AP3.
- - Vulcan mega-bolter: Same as above, can use to shoot Flyers if you're desperate.
- - Vortex support missile: One-use missile that leaves a Vortex after throwing a Strength D Large Blast from anywhere between 12" and 960" (uh, you might as well go and hit the poor chap's 40K army in the next country). Pass.
- 1d4chan advises that the Reaver is cheaper when spamming Strength D weapons, what with the ability to spew 8 Strength D Large Blasts for a mere 1,475 points, so keep that in mind when building him. Two laser blasters and one carapace turbo laser destructor will drown your opponent's side of the table in so many Strength D Large Blasts you'll need an aquarium to collect his tears.
LEGIO CYBERNETICA UNIT ANALYSIS
This subtype allows you to field a complete army of robots! A Rite of War for the Mechanicum, if you will, you can build a purely robot list with quite a few restrictions. Mechanicum: Taghmata Army List hit them pretty hard. Well, you still have to take a Magos Dominus or an Archmagos Dominus as your compulsory HQ, (or Archmagos Inar Satarael if you like special characters), which isn't a nerf, but the problems start right after that. The detachment's compulsory Troop choices must be made up of Castellax Battle-automata units, which is why we're taking Legio Cybernetica in the first place...but unfortunately each of these compulsory units must contain at least 2 Castellax models. EACH. Yup, your "tax" troops forces you to take 4 Castellax Battle-automata, so no more taking just 2 (1 in each slot) and giving them Paragon of Metal to run amuck. While this is the whole point of playing Legio Cybernetica in the first place, putting 4 of them instead of 2 in your army eats away at your points total and ensure you don't have space for a larger variety of units. Furthermore, Battle-automata are no longer scoring units (though you can always discuss this with your opponent and have only your Castellax count as scoring, otherwise there's no point playing when you have no way of scoring), so the disadvantage just grows. Being a Legio Cybernetica army, even your Fast Attack and Heavy Support choices must include a giant robot first before you can choose anything else. This means you can't take an Avenger Strike Fighter without taking a Vorax Battle-automata first, and you can't take Myrmidon Destructors or Krios Venators without taking a Thanatar Siege-automata first. But the whole idea of playing Legio Cybernetica is to field cool, awesome, giant robots so why are you choosing those vehicles/cyborg-but-not-fully-robot guys over your super duper Mecha in the first place? Go play vanilla Taghmata instead. The worst thing? If Legio Cybernetica is your Primary Detachment, you've to make sure your Archmagos Dominus (or any model with a Cortex Controller) survives at the end of the game. Failure to do so means your opponent gains +D3 additional Victory points. Ouch. not for the faint-hearted, and only someone as reckless as me will even consider it.
However, the buffs we receive are very significant. Our Cortex Controller and Cybertheurgy range is increased to 24", double the original distance, which makes a lot of difference and reduces the need for babysitting cortex controller Tech-Priests, and the +1 to Initiative means their melee abilities are vastly improved. As mentioned earlier, the Vorax Battle-automata now strikes at I5, wiping out squads of Space Marines before they even get to hit, and Castellax Battle-automata now hit at the same time as those Power Armored bastards (and Terminator too!). The direct opposite of Ordo Reductor, they are a very specialized army that spams Monstrous Creatures, so as 1d4chan will say, abuse Cybertheurgy to your advantage and show them the weakness of the flesh!
HQ
Archmagos Dominus: You know the Magos Dominus in Taghmata, but using Legio Cybernetica unlocks his next stage and promotes him into the Archmagos Dominus! You can only have one of him, and if you use him, no promoting your Magos Prime into an Archmagos. He's pretty expensive, but worth his points and extremely hard to kill if you kit him out properly. You're more likely to cast Cybertheurgy spells with his Ld10, and if you give him a Cyber-familiar, a machinator array and an Abeyant, he'll become a T6 W4 character with It Will Not Die and Feel No Pain (5+). And you're going to need all that because if he dies, your opponent gets an extra +D3 Victory points unless you've a couple of normal Magos Dominus or cortex controller Tech-priests hiding around somewhere in some ruins (and you conveniently forgot to tell your opponent that he's in your army. forgot to Move him, Run, Shoot or even cast Cybertheurgy powers with him the entire game).
- He's also the only Independent Character who can use the Cortica Primus relic, which weirdly enough isn't in the Mechanicum: Taghmata Army List book, to ensure a unit of 3+ Battle-automata (otherwise it isn't worth it) all receive the buffs from Cybertheurgy and become real MONSTROUS Creatures. The Vorax Battle-automata example above is one, and you can do the same for your unit of 3 Castellax Battle-automata, putting out a potential 18 attacks plus an extra 3 Hammer of Wrath, on the Charge! 21 plus 3 if you had upgraded them with Battle-automata power blades for that extra attack. Awesome. Best of all, you don't even need your Archmagos Dominus to brave melee with them as he can cast that power from 24" away!
ORDO REDUCTOR UNIT ANALYSIS
The Ordo Reductor, surprisingly enough, has the most options despite being a subtype. Interestingly enough, back in the original Horus Heresy books, they had the least options, so they stood to benefit the most from the new Mechanicum Taghmata update. YAY! The new book gives them much more viable tanks and a couple of exclusive ones, turning them from a restricted list into a very competitive army with room for abuse, thanks to their souped up Rites of War. Laugh at the Iron Warriors who deluded themselves into thinking they're the best at siege warfare. Nope, the Ordo Reductor has them beat and leaves them in the dust...quite literally, thanks to their Ordinatus engines.
Restrictions: Magos Reductor, Archmagos Reductor or Calleb Decima must be the compulsory HQ, and your compulsory Troops choices must be Mechanicum Thallax Cohorts. Well, these aren't really disadvantages as the Magos Reductor is a good support character and Thallax are among the best Troops choice in Mechanicum. On the other hand, your Battle-automata and Siege-automata cannot make up more than half your total army, so no spamming Thanatar Siege-automata and Vorax Battle-automata unless you have an equal number of tanks, vehicles and non-robot infantry.
Bonuses: Your entire army has Move Through Cover, basically. They ignore Pinning and the penalties and risks for moving or charging through difficult terrain or dangerous terrain. So your tanks no longer have to worry about immobilizing themselves! You also unlock additional units such as the above-mentioned Magos Reductor, Ordo Reductor Artillery Tank Battery and Ordo Reductor Minotaur Battery. You also gain a unique type of Primary Detachment for use with the Ordo Reductor War Convenant called the Matrix of Ruin.
MATRIX OF RUIN ARMY FORCE ORGANIZATION CHART
Primary Detachment (Required)
- Compulsory: 1 HQ, 2 Troops, 2 Heavy Support
- Optional: +1 HQ, +3 Troops, +2 Elites, +2 Fast Attack, +2 Heavy Support
Lords of War Detachment (Optional)
- 2 choices
- - Sweet, but hard to get unless you play 3,000-point games and even then you can only bring 2 Knights Paladin or Errant (in any combination) to fit under the 750-point restriction in the 30K Age of Darkness games.
No Allied detachment or Fortifications are allowed. Well, you're a destroyer not a builder, so Magos Macrotek is less useful for you.
The Unfettered Wrath of the Machine: All Tanks are scoring units when in an enemy deployment zone in Age of Darkness games, and all Tanks have Objective Secured when in an enemy deployment zone in Maelstrom of War games.
HQ
Magos Reductor: Now an Independent Character, he has better stats than a normal Magos, with WS4 and BS5! Sweet! You can promote him into an Archmagos Reductor, which increases most of his stats except BS, I and A, but allows him to automatically have Battlefield Analysis as a Warlord trait instead of needing to roll randomly. He gets exclusive options like up to 3 breacher charges and up to 3 phosphex bombs, and even a rad furnace if you want to run him around with Scyllax Guardian-automata bodyguards. His attacks also have Sunder and +1 to rolls made on Vheicle Damage and Building Damage tables. He can give these bonuses to a friendly vehicle or unit within 6" that have Heavy or Ordnance weapons, so park him right next to a squadron of Krios Venators and laugh hysterically as 12 S9 AP2 shots blow up a Super-heavy in one turn. Better yet, take a Magos Ordinator with conversion beamer and laugh louder as he kills everything with an Armorbane, Wrecker, Sunder and bonus damage table conversion beamer at 42-72". Or with that bombardment attack, if you want a bigger Area of Effect.
HEAVY SUPPORT
Ordo Reductor Artillery Tank Battery: A battery of 1-3 artillery tanks, they come stock with a Whirlwind launcher that has Vengeance and Castellan missiles, which you can swap for Hyperios air-defence missiles for free. Good thing they have BS4 so they won't miss as much as the Imperial Guard, but an AV12 front, AV10 sides and rear and 3 Hull Points mean they are relatively fragile. They are extremely flexible, and if kitted out properly, can be devastating. Siege Plating ups their front armor to AV13 for 15 points, Blessed Autosimulacra, and even hull-mounted and pintle-mounted heavy bolters and heavy flamers. All must have the same primary weapon if they're in the same battery, and they have a wide range of options which you can, and should absolutely, swap the underwhelming Whirlwind launchers for:
- Demolisher cannon: your standard Demolisher cannon that fires a devastating 24" S10 AP2 Large Blast and is 4.5 times cheaper than the Medusa that throws a similarly powerful Large Blast at a longer range.
- Quad lascannon: twin-linked double-shot lascannon. Good for anti-tank, but you might as well get a Krios Venator.
- Dual melta cannon: in case you missed your Devildog and wanted twice the anti-tank fun. The range of 24" and 12" melta range is discouraging, though.
- Earthshaker cannon: The Mechanicum gets Basilisks at a cheaper price but higher BS! How is this fair?!
- Medusa cannon: prohibitively expensive, but delivers wanton destruction at S10 AP2 at 36" with Barrage. It also has phosphex rounds, which is only S5 AP2 BUT Poisons on a 3+ and leaves a trail of Crawling Fire and the scent of Lingering Death wherever it hits. 1d4chan recommends you abuse Ordo Reductor and get 12 of these babies for overpoweredness.
- Mars-Colossus bombard: no more Ignores Cover but gets +1 Strength for a S7 AP3 Massive Blast pie-plate that has Ordnance, Concussive, Barrage and Pinning. Sounds colossally dangerous and is the most expensive of the options.
Ordo Reductor Minotaur Battery: No longer a super-heavy but costs almost as much as one, but being a Heavy Tank he can score, and you can take up to 3 of them in one squadron! Expensive if you do, though. With front and rear AV13 and side AV12, 5 Hull Points and BS4, he can take a lot of damage, and with an Armored Ceramite upgrade, can tank melta shots too. For some reason he has a rear facing flare shield so...good against Deep Strikers? And Blessed Autosimulacra. Yay. Get a pintle-mounted phased plasma-fusil and an Anabaric claw if you want, but his main weapon is the Dual Earthshaker cannon that fires a twin-linked Massive Blast Ordnance with Barrage and S9 AP3. An enhanced Basilisk, I guess, with a similar range of 24"-240". Funnily enough, he can only fire indirectly because his cannons are so huge they cannot be levelled for direct fire. Yeah, I can see why the Imperial Guard spam Basilisks instead (it's even in the fluff! They're lighter and can be mass produced in vast quantities, and there are other larger, more purpose-built super-heavy artillery which I suspect is the Ordinatus engines).
THE TITAN LEGIONS
The Titans are huge, and it's unlikely you'll ever use them in 30K games unless you play 3,000-point games. And even then, you'll only be able to fit in a single Warhound. If you want to play the Reaver Titan, you need the Leviathan Force Organization Chart, as I said for the Ordinatus-Minoris Engines. Ditto for the Warlord, but you might as well field him all by himself in the Leviathan FOC, or wait for someone to play Apocalypse with you. On the other hand, if you're bold enough to bring them to a normal 40K game, I guess someone will be friendly enough to play with you...
Hence, I put them in a different section, because they might as well be an army unto themselves. Seriously, there's no way to play them legally unless you use the Leviathan FOC, so they might as well be counted separately from the Mechanicum. And considering the fluff, they actually are a completely different military organization from the Taghmata, and much like the Skitarii, operates according to their own doctrines and traditions.
Legio Titanicus Warhound Scout Titan: The smallest Titan, as well as the cheapest, he has 2 Void Shields. 9 Hull Points encased in a front AV14, side AV13 and rear AV 12 chasis, can't be locked in assault, is completely immune to the effects of Haywire, dangerous terrain and pyschic attacks other than Witchfire powers. Has two Titan weapons, one on each arm, and can choose between a Vulcan mega-bolter, which fires 15 S6 AP3 heavy shots at 60", a Titan plasma blastgun that fires 2 modes - the rapid mode being a 72" two-shot S8 AP2 Massive Blast and overload being a 96" S10 AP2 single Apocalyptic Blast, a double-barrelled turbo laser destructor that has 2 Strength D shots that are Large Blasts and 96" range and Warhound inferno gun that throws out a Hellstorm of S7 AP3 just like the Acheron pattern flame-cannon, exept that the former is Primary Weapon and the latter is Ordnance. Pretty good for killing Space Marines and Terminators, and if in a pinch, even vehicles.
Legio Titanicus Reaver Battle Titan: The medium Titan, about twice the price of a Warhound and can still barely fit into 1,850-point or 2,000-point game if you're not that fussed about having a small allied army. He's tougher than the Warhound, and has the same immunity to Haywire, dangerous terrain and psychic powers (except Witchfire), can never be locked in an assault, but the similarities stop there. On top of having a stronger chasis of front AV14, side AV14 and rear AV13, 18 Hull Points AND 4 Void Shields, he can only be hit on a 6 by Infantry and Monstrous Creatures of any type in an assault, and on a 5 or 6 by Super-heavy Walkers and Gargantuan Creatures in an assault, as well as his carapace-mounted weapons not being able to target models closer than 18" from his hull unless they are Flyers, Flying Monstrous Creatures or other Super-heavy vehicles or Gargantuan Creatures. Wow.
- He has 2 arm-mounted Titan weapons like the Warhound, and similarly you can choose 2 of any combination from the following list:
- - Reaver gatling blaster: a 6-shot S8 AP3 Large Blast with Pinning and 72".
- - Reaver laser blaster: A super Destroyer weapon! Fires 3 Large Blasts of Strength D shots at 96"!
- - Reaver volcano cannon for an extra 50 points: Like above, but only fires a single Massive Blast of Strength D at a whooping 180". Uh...I think the laser blaster is better.
- - Reaver melta cannon: a giant melta cannon that's a S10 AP1 Apocalyptic Blast at 72", so double roll for Armor penetration for targets within 36".
- - Reaver power fist: Strength D AP1 Melee weapon, but with WS2 it'll be lucky to hit anything..,
- - Reaver chainfist for 75 points, but with WS2 I dunno what's the point...like above, Strength D AP1, but for 75 points you get Machine Destroyer, which re-rolls ones on the Destroyer table against machines. Not sure if that bonus is worth 75 points...
- He can also take the following carapace-mounted weapons:
- - Apocalypse missile launcher: Come the Apocalypse! 5-shot Apocaluptic Barrage at S7 AP3 from 24" to 360". Whee! Lots of things will die!
- - Double-barrelled turbo laser destructor: 2-shot Strength D Large Blast weapon at 96". Not bad.
- - Warhound inferno gun: Same as above in Warhound's options, Hellstorm, S7 AP3.
- - Vulcan mega-bolter: Same as above, can use to shoot Flyers if you're desperate.
- - Vortex support missile: One-use missile that leaves a Vortex after throwing a Strength D Large Blast from anywhere between 12" and 960" (uh, you might as well go and hit the poor chap's 40K army in the next country). Pass.
- 1d4chan advises that the Reaver is cheaper when spamming Strength D weapons, what with the ability to spew 8 Strength D Large Blasts for a mere 1,475 points, so keep that in mind when building him. Two laser blasters and one carapace turbo laser destructor will drown your opponent's side of the table in so many Strength D Large Blasts you'll need an aquarium to collect his tears.
Legio Titanicus Warbringer Nemesis Titan: The in-between Titan who has an artillery role. About 2,100 points, he has 24 hull points, with front AV 15, side AV 14 and rear AV12 and 6 void shields. He comes equipped with a carapace-mounted Nemesis quake cannon, which is 20"-480" range, so you can play Apocalypse and have him shoot across tables if you want to. It's an Apocalyptic Blast, with Strength D in the center, Strength 9 and Strength 6 in the outer edges and AP 3. Best of all is the Seismic Shock rule, which means the targets can only move at half their movement speed, can't Run, Charge, go Flat Out and count as being in Dangerous Terrain for their next turn. Also has a couple of anti-air twin-linked autocannons (4 shots each) and 3 Mauler bolt cannons. You can swap his Nemesis quake cannon for a Nemesis volcano cannon, which fires a Strength D AP1 Massive Blast (7") shot from 20" to 260" range, and has Machine Destroyer, which allows you to re-roll rolls of 1 on the Destroyer table if you're attacking a vehicle.
- He has a choice between four different types of arm weapons.
- - Reaver laster blasters: 3 Large Blast Stength D shots at 96".
- - Reaver gatling blaster: a 6-shot S8 AP3 Large Blast with Pinning and 72".
- - Reaver volcano cannon: fires a single Massive Blast of Strength D at a whooping 180".
- - Reaver melta cannon: a giant melta cannon that's a S10 AP1 Apocalyptic Blast at 72", so double roll for Armor penetration for targets within 36".
Legio Titanicus Mars Warlord Battle Titan: The lord of all Titans (barring the Imperator Titan, who's the King of all Titans...or Emperor), he costs almost twice the Reaver, meaning you need at least a 2,750-point game to play him, and he's a one-man army unless you can squeeze another couple hundred points of allies into a 3,000-point game (and don't upgrade him). Same WS2 and BS4 as the other two smaller Titans, he's obviously much tougher, with 6 Void Shields, front and side AV 15 (is that even possible?!), rear AV14 and an awesome 30 Hull Points. You're not going to kill this thing unless you roll 3 sixes with your Destroyer weapon...and even then you need to roll another 2 sixes at least. As with the Reaver, the Warlord cannot be locked in assault, can only be hit on a 6 by Infantry and Monstrous Creatures of any type in an assalt, and on a 5 or 6 by Super-heavy Walkers and Gargantuan Creatures in an assault, immune to Haywire, dangerous terrain and psychic (except Witchfire), and his carapace-mounted weapons cannot target models closer than 24" from his hull unless they are Flyers, Flying Monstrous Creatures or other Super-heavy vehicles or Gargantuan Creatures. Additionally, his Stomp attacks use the Large Blast template and he has a 5++ invulnerable save against any attacks that have breached his void shields. Awesome. Not only that, he has two Ardex-defensor mauler bolt cannon turrets and two rear-mounted Ardex twin-linked lascannon turrets, the former shooting 6 Heavy Twin-linked S6 AP3 shots at 36" and the latter using the standard S9 AP2 lascannon profile, but both have Ardex Machina which means he can fire Overwatch AND has Cognis - firing Snap Shots at BS2. To top it off, he also has Armored Ceramite, so all your melta Space Marine drop pods are useless against him now, bitches!
- What you want him for is his World Burner rule, which means the Warlord Titan can use any of his Blast marker weapons to target areas of the battlefield rather than enemy units if he wishes, including buildings and ruins. So who cares about Line of Sight? If there's someone camping in there, blow them up! This also allows you to hit two or three units at once rather than placing it on the center of a single unit.
- As said above, 1d4chan advises that you don't spam Strength D weapons with this guy, but equip him with the right tools for the job, since a Reaver will be cheaper for that. Abuse his World Burner instead for all those Apocalyptic Blast templates and turn the table...uh, world into a true Apocalypse!
- He can equip two of the following arm-mounted weapons in any combination:
- - Belicosa pattern volcano cannon: Same as the Ordinatus Sagittar, throws down a Strength D AP1 Apocalyptic Blast from 180". Awesome. Destruction everywhere!
- - Sunfury plasma annihilator: The Hellex plasma mortar's big brother, firing 4 Apocalyptic Barrages that have Plasma Wave, which means Cover is useless against all that S9 AP2.
- - Mori quake cannon: as a trivia, mori 森 is forest in Japanese, but I don't think that's what they're talking about here. What they do have is a an Apocalyptic Blast that only deals S D/9/6, all AP3, on anywhere from 24"-360". It causes Concussive, Strikedown and Seismic Shock, which forces units who suffered wounds or damage from this attack to only move half their usual maximum movement, and they cannot Run, Charge or go Flat Out, and count as being in dangerous terrain on their next turn. Okay, I guess...not too enthusiastic about it, but it has its uses.
- - Saturnye lascutter: A lascutter from Saturn! Fires a Hellstorm template of S9 AP2 with INSTANT DEATH and is Primary Weapon so is dangerous to vehicles as well! Not only that, it can be used in assault as a Strength D AP1 weapon with Machine Destroyer and also Instant Death! Much better than the inferno gun, if you ask me...but then again, only the Warlord Titan can take it. The Warlord Titan's WS2 worries me, though. Nothing to do but sigh in dismay as he Charges and misses all 4 of his attacks.
- - Arioch Titan power claw: This gives +1 Attack, and is a Machine Destroyer at Strength D AP1. Normally I would take the Saturnye lascutter over this, but that extra Attack might prove vital. But with his dismal WS2...oh well.
- - Macro-gatling blaster: A souped up version of the Reaver's gatling blaster above, it retains the 72" range, 6 Large Blast Primary Weapon shots, Pinning and AP3, but increases the Strength to a whooping 10. Cool!
- And he can have two carapace weapons from the following, though it seems they must be the same:
- - Apocalypse missile launchers: Same as above, same as above. Double the fun, though.
- - Double-barrelled turbo laser destructors: Same as above, same as above. As stated earlier, don't waste your time spamming Strength D weapons on your Warlord Titan, even if you have twice as many atop him as you do your Reaver. Your Reaver fires 8 Strength D Large Blast shots for about half the price of your Warlord who throws only 10. You didn't pay the extra price of a Reaver just so you could get 2 more Strength D shots, did you?
- - Twin-linked Vulcan mega-bolters: Same as above, except with Twin-linked, all the more to let you land more hits with its 15 shots.
- - Titan plasma blastguns: Same as above, same as above, but double the fun. Combo with World Burner and Belicosa pattern volcano cannon to throw 4 Apocalyptic Blasts all over the table and smoke those campers hiding from your line of sight!
- - Reaver laser blasters: As with the turbo laser destructors above, leave these guys to your Reaver, he'll make better use of them.
- - Reaver melta cannons: Same as above, same as above. But double the fun and twice as many vehicles wrecked, particularly if they're stupid enough to get within 36". Not as effective if they're smart enough to take Armored Ceramite.
- - Reaver gatling blasters: Same as above, same as above. though combining these with the Macro-gatling blasters on his arms will multiply the amount of dakka.
- - Vortex missile banks: 2 x One Use for each missile bank, otherwise identical to the Reaver's Vortex support missile. Dunno if it's a good idea to have 4 Vortexes whirling around the table. Fun, but it could easily bite you in the ass if they Scatter toward your colossal Warlord who has no place to run.
- - Incinerator missile banks: Another One Use weapon (so you've 2), but fire 10 shots of Apocalyptic Barrage that deals S6 AP3 hits with IGNORES COVER. 12"-360" isn't a big deal, since you can't aim at anything within 24" of you anyway, and this should be used to flush out entire gunlines or campers hiding inside those ruins and buildings like sissies.
ALLIES
The Mechanicum can take the following as Allies, divided into Sworn Brothers, Fellow Warriors, Distrusted Allies and By the Emperor's (or the Warmaster's) Command. I'm not sure what each legion does except Solar Auxillia, so I apologize for the lack of detail on this one. I suggest you go visit 1d4chan instead.
Sworn Brothers
- Iron Warriors
- Iron Hands (notice both Iron legions made it to this list!)
- Sons of Horus (NOOO!)
- Salamanders (for some good old flamer and melta lists)
- Raven Guard (huh? What?! Why?! I read the fluff and I've never seen them being buddies, the Raven Guard are supposed to be pretty aloof and hiding in shadows, refusing to cooperate with anyone!)
- Questoris Knights (makes sense if you think about it, and they're essentially the same faction. Not to mention the Knights rely on your Battlesmiths to repair them, and your Mechanicum army benefits from long range firepower and AV13, ion shield and super-heavy durability)
Fellow Warriors
- Dark Angels
- Emperor's Children
- White Scars
- Space Wolves
- Imperial Fists (you would think they'll be buddies with the other siege warfare Legion, not to mention their close proximity to Mars during their defense of Terra)
- Night Lords
- Blood Angels (blood is weak! Or is it the flesh?)
- World Eaters (they probably break more machines faster than the Tech-priests can repair them)
- Ultramarines (but...but...Captain Titus of the Ultramarines saved the Forge World of Graia! They should be grateful and Sworn Brothers!)
- Death Guard (well, they're also obsessed with the death of flesh)
- Thousand Sons (psychic powers and robots don't match...cough Castellax-Achea...cough)
- Word Bearers (I guess the Omnissiah and the Primordial Annihilator don't mix)
- Alpha Legion (don't know what they're thinking)
- Imperial Army
- - Solar Auxillia: A great idea if you want to play hordes, so you can drop the Tech-thralls in favor of Auxillia Lasrifle sections. As an added bonus, they come with a nuncio-vox, which helps with your Deep Striking Thallax and even your Thanatar Siege-automata. On the other hand, the main point of getting Solar Auxillia is their tanks, especially their super-heavy Malcador tank that they can put in their Heavy Support, and perhaps a few Leman Russ Battle Tanks in the Fast Attack slot.
- - Imperial Militia and Cults: Very flexible allies with a wide selection. You can make pseudo-Skitarii with a combination of Survivors of the Dark Age and Cyber Augmented! Throw in lots of cheap, expendable soldiers as bodies, if that's your fancy, the way you spam Solar Auxillia Lasrifle sections, and again, tanks! They also have a Malcador if that's what you want.
TACTICAL DISCUSSION
Er...I don't think I'm qualified to talk about this. I'll rather just build a Legio Cybernetica for fun, as seeing the gorgeous Thanatar on Winters SEO's Youtube channel was what got me into Mechanicum in the first place. So spamming Battle-automata is my cup of tea.
First you'll probably want to consider the type of Force Organization Chart to use. There's the standard Battles in the Age of Darkness Force Organization Chart with 1 compulsory HQ and 2 compulsory Troops, and optional 2+ HQ, 4+ Troops, 4+ Elites, 3+ Fast Attack, 3+ Heavy Support, 1+ Lord of War and 1+ Fortification. Standard, and flexible, can't go wrong with this. Good for a Taghmata army. 2 Thallax Cohorts with a single Magos Prime is enough to get you started, and you can start adding from there, perhaps a single Castellax, a couple of Krios Venators, a Thanatar, and maybe some Myrmidons. While at it, throw in some Triaros Armored Conveyor as Dedicated Transport for your infantry. There's also an optional Allied Detachment if you want to throw in your Solar Auxillia or Imperial Militia...or even an allied Questoris Knights Crusade FOC if you have that many points left! All you need is a single compulsory HQ and 1 compulsory Troops, with an optional Troops, Elites, Fast Attack and Heavy Support. No Lords of War though. This is a Jack of All Trades army that can reliably deal with whatever your opponent have, and you can throw in whatever you think you need, such as fast, mobile infantry with anti-vehicle options, tough, long-range dudes with anti-horde weaponry, and even resilient Monstrous Creatures that your opponent find difficult to take down while throwing their fearsome firepower all over the table. It's entire up to you.
There's also the Onslaught Force Organization Chart, which is optional. It removes one optional HQ, 1 compulsory Troops and 2 optional Troops, 1 optional Fast Attack, and takes away the optional Fortification completely but gives 1 compulsory Heavy Support and an extra Lord of War slot. Maybe I should try this for my Legio Cybernetica so that I don't need to spend so many points on 4 Castellax, and can perhaps make space for a Thallax Cohort or a tank. I don't think it's viable to throw in 2 Lords of War unless I play up to 3,000-point games...but adding a Knight Paladin alongside 2 Thanatar Siege-automata and 2 Castellax Battle-auotmata, with 6 Vorax Battle-automata running around thanks to Scout, is scary. This list caters more toward a heavy list of slow-moving, armored, tough creatures that hard to kill but pack incredible firepower. More so than the Battles in the Age of Darkness FOC, what with an extra Heavy Support and Lords of War slot. The downside is that you don't get Allies, and you can never start first unless you Seize the Initiative.
The Castellan Force Organization Chart allows you to bring a compulsory Fortification and 3 more optional ones, while increasing your compulsory Troops to 3. You still get that compulsory HQ, with a second optional one as per Onslaught FOC, 3 optional Troops, only 2 optional Elites, only 1 optional Fast Attack and 3 optional Heavy Support. Lords of War remain the same, one optional, and you can actually take Allies. Yay. If you prefer to hide behind your own Fortification and rely on a gunline, then this is for you. Turtle strategy. Bring a Magos Macrotek for 5 Fortifications!
The last and not least is the Leviathan Force Organization Chart that I've mentioned a few times above. If bringing an entire army of many models is not your thing, you can just buy and build a single model (or 3) before plopping it on the table and declaring that he is your one-man army. Good with Titans, as I already mentioned, and you can probably do the same with the Ordinatus engines. Even gives you an option to bring allies, but if you've the points, why not spend them all on a 2nd Lord of War? Bring 2 Titans, or 2 Ordinatus engines will scare the living hell out of anyone and ensure you won't get a game ever again. The Leviathan is your Lord of War, and he must be an Engine of Destruction or Great Beast type (meaning you can't use Questoris Knights for this - but don't fret! You already have a Questoris Knight Crusade FOC anyway! And it's better!), so your Titans and Ordinatus engines. One of them, the main one, is your Warlord, and is also a scoring unit while possessing his unique Leviathan Warlord Trait - Legendary Destroyer. Basically fire Overwatch with any of his weapons without the Primary Weapon ro Blast types, and can even fire them at different targets! He also has Monster Hunter and Tank Hunter, and units charging it, while rolling for Fear tests must roll an additional D6 and discard the lowest of their results. Brilliant.
- Already mentioned above is the single Ordinatus Ulator with an allied Questoris Knights detachment of 2 Knights Paladins (or changing one into a Knight Errant). For 1,850 points, that's your entire Super-heavy army there, ready to wreck everything with their overwhelming firepower that will put even the Onslaught FOC to shame. Best of all, you get to start first against the Onslaught FOC because of their Rolling Thunder Special Rule! OUCH.
So that's basically all I have for you guys. Thanks for reading, and if there are any changes I need to make, please let me know.
Other Links:
Legio Titanicus Mars Warlord Battle Titan: The lord of all Titans (barring the Imperator Titan, who's the King of all Titans...or Emperor), he costs almost twice the Reaver, meaning you need at least a 2,750-point game to play him, and he's a one-man army unless you can squeeze another couple hundred points of allies into a 3,000-point game (and don't upgrade him). Same WS2 and BS4 as the other two smaller Titans, he's obviously much tougher, with 6 Void Shields, front and side AV 15 (is that even possible?!), rear AV14 and an awesome 30 Hull Points. You're not going to kill this thing unless you roll 3 sixes with your Destroyer weapon...and even then you need to roll another 2 sixes at least. As with the Reaver, the Warlord cannot be locked in assault, can only be hit on a 6 by Infantry and Monstrous Creatures of any type in an assalt, and on a 5 or 6 by Super-heavy Walkers and Gargantuan Creatures in an assault, immune to Haywire, dangerous terrain and psychic (except Witchfire), and his carapace-mounted weapons cannot target models closer than 24" from his hull unless they are Flyers, Flying Monstrous Creatures or other Super-heavy vehicles or Gargantuan Creatures. Additionally, his Stomp attacks use the Large Blast template and he has a 5++ invulnerable save against any attacks that have breached his void shields. Awesome. Not only that, he has two Ardex-defensor mauler bolt cannon turrets and two rear-mounted Ardex twin-linked lascannon turrets, the former shooting 6 Heavy Twin-linked S6 AP3 shots at 36" and the latter using the standard S9 AP2 lascannon profile, but both have Ardex Machina which means he can fire Overwatch AND has Cognis - firing Snap Shots at BS2. To top it off, he also has Armored Ceramite, so all your melta Space Marine drop pods are useless against him now, bitches!
- What you want him for is his World Burner rule, which means the Warlord Titan can use any of his Blast marker weapons to target areas of the battlefield rather than enemy units if he wishes, including buildings and ruins. So who cares about Line of Sight? If there's someone camping in there, blow them up! This also allows you to hit two or three units at once rather than placing it on the center of a single unit.
- As said above, 1d4chan advises that you don't spam Strength D weapons with this guy, but equip him with the right tools for the job, since a Reaver will be cheaper for that. Abuse his World Burner instead for all those Apocalyptic Blast templates and turn the table...uh, world into a true Apocalypse!
- He can equip two of the following arm-mounted weapons in any combination:
- - Belicosa pattern volcano cannon: Same as the Ordinatus Sagittar, throws down a Strength D AP1 Apocalyptic Blast from 180". Awesome. Destruction everywhere!
- - Sunfury plasma annihilator: The Hellex plasma mortar's big brother, firing 4 Apocalyptic Barrages that have Plasma Wave, which means Cover is useless against all that S9 AP2.
- - Mori quake cannon: as a trivia, mori 森 is forest in Japanese, but I don't think that's what they're talking about here. What they do have is a an Apocalyptic Blast that only deals S D/9/6, all AP3, on anywhere from 24"-360". It causes Concussive, Strikedown and Seismic Shock, which forces units who suffered wounds or damage from this attack to only move half their usual maximum movement, and they cannot Run, Charge or go Flat Out, and count as being in dangerous terrain on their next turn. Okay, I guess...not too enthusiastic about it, but it has its uses.
- - Saturnye lascutter: A lascutter from Saturn! Fires a Hellstorm template of S9 AP2 with INSTANT DEATH and is Primary Weapon so is dangerous to vehicles as well! Not only that, it can be used in assault as a Strength D AP1 weapon with Machine Destroyer and also Instant Death! Much better than the inferno gun, if you ask me...but then again, only the Warlord Titan can take it. The Warlord Titan's WS2 worries me, though. Nothing to do but sigh in dismay as he Charges and misses all 4 of his attacks.
- - Arioch Titan power claw: This gives +1 Attack, and is a Machine Destroyer at Strength D AP1. Normally I would take the Saturnye lascutter over this, but that extra Attack might prove vital. But with his dismal WS2...oh well.
- - Macro-gatling blaster: A souped up version of the Reaver's gatling blaster above, it retains the 72" range, 6 Large Blast Primary Weapon shots, Pinning and AP3, but increases the Strength to a whooping 10. Cool!
- And he can have two carapace weapons from the following, though it seems they must be the same:
- - Apocalypse missile launchers: Same as above, same as above. Double the fun, though.
- - Double-barrelled turbo laser destructors: Same as above, same as above. As stated earlier, don't waste your time spamming Strength D weapons on your Warlord Titan, even if you have twice as many atop him as you do your Reaver. Your Reaver fires 8 Strength D Large Blast shots for about half the price of your Warlord who throws only 10. You didn't pay the extra price of a Reaver just so you could get 2 more Strength D shots, did you?
- - Twin-linked Vulcan mega-bolters: Same as above, except with Twin-linked, all the more to let you land more hits with its 15 shots.
- - Titan plasma blastguns: Same as above, same as above, but double the fun. Combo with World Burner and Belicosa pattern volcano cannon to throw 4 Apocalyptic Blasts all over the table and smoke those campers hiding from your line of sight!
- - Reaver laser blasters: As with the turbo laser destructors above, leave these guys to your Reaver, he'll make better use of them.
- - Reaver melta cannons: Same as above, same as above. But double the fun and twice as many vehicles wrecked, particularly if they're stupid enough to get within 36". Not as effective if they're smart enough to take Armored Ceramite.
- - Reaver gatling blasters: Same as above, same as above. though combining these with the Macro-gatling blasters on his arms will multiply the amount of dakka.
- - Vortex missile banks: 2 x One Use for each missile bank, otherwise identical to the Reaver's Vortex support missile. Dunno if it's a good idea to have 4 Vortexes whirling around the table. Fun, but it could easily bite you in the ass if they Scatter toward your colossal Warlord who has no place to run.
- - Incinerator missile banks: Another One Use weapon (so you've 2), but fire 10 shots of Apocalyptic Barrage that deals S6 AP3 hits with IGNORES COVER. 12"-360" isn't a big deal, since you can't aim at anything within 24" of you anyway, and this should be used to flush out entire gunlines or campers hiding inside those ruins and buildings like sissies.
ALLIES
The Mechanicum can take the following as Allies, divided into Sworn Brothers, Fellow Warriors, Distrusted Allies and By the Emperor's (or the Warmaster's) Command. I'm not sure what each legion does except Solar Auxillia, so I apologize for the lack of detail on this one. I suggest you go visit 1d4chan instead.
Sworn Brothers
- Iron Warriors
- Iron Hands (notice both Iron legions made it to this list!)
- Sons of Horus (NOOO!)
- Salamanders (for some good old flamer and melta lists)
- Raven Guard (huh? What?! Why?! I read the fluff and I've never seen them being buddies, the Raven Guard are supposed to be pretty aloof and hiding in shadows, refusing to cooperate with anyone!)
- Questoris Knights (makes sense if you think about it, and they're essentially the same faction. Not to mention the Knights rely on your Battlesmiths to repair them, and your Mechanicum army benefits from long range firepower and AV13, ion shield and super-heavy durability)
Fellow Warriors
- Dark Angels
- Emperor's Children
- White Scars
- Space Wolves
- Imperial Fists (you would think they'll be buddies with the other siege warfare Legion, not to mention their close proximity to Mars during their defense of Terra)
- Night Lords
- Blood Angels (blood is weak! Or is it the flesh?)
- World Eaters (they probably break more machines faster than the Tech-priests can repair them)
- Ultramarines (but...but...Captain Titus of the Ultramarines saved the Forge World of Graia! They should be grateful and Sworn Brothers!)
- Death Guard (well, they're also obsessed with the death of flesh)
- Thousand Sons (psychic powers and robots don't match...cough Castellax-Achea...cough)
- Word Bearers (I guess the Omnissiah and the Primordial Annihilator don't mix)
- Alpha Legion (don't know what they're thinking)
- Imperial Army
- - Solar Auxillia: A great idea if you want to play hordes, so you can drop the Tech-thralls in favor of Auxillia Lasrifle sections. As an added bonus, they come with a nuncio-vox, which helps with your Deep Striking Thallax and even your Thanatar Siege-automata. On the other hand, the main point of getting Solar Auxillia is their tanks, especially their super-heavy Malcador tank that they can put in their Heavy Support, and perhaps a few Leman Russ Battle Tanks in the Fast Attack slot.
- - Imperial Militia and Cults: Very flexible allies with a wide selection. You can make pseudo-Skitarii with a combination of Survivors of the Dark Age and Cyber Augmented! Throw in lots of cheap, expendable soldiers as bodies, if that's your fancy, the way you spam Solar Auxillia Lasrifle sections, and again, tanks! They also have a Malcador if that's what you want.
TACTICAL DISCUSSION
Er...I don't think I'm qualified to talk about this. I'll rather just build a Legio Cybernetica for fun, as seeing the gorgeous Thanatar on Winters SEO's Youtube channel was what got me into Mechanicum in the first place. So spamming Battle-automata is my cup of tea.
First you'll probably want to consider the type of Force Organization Chart to use. There's the standard Battles in the Age of Darkness Force Organization Chart with 1 compulsory HQ and 2 compulsory Troops, and optional 2+ HQ, 4+ Troops, 4+ Elites, 3+ Fast Attack, 3+ Heavy Support, 1+ Lord of War and 1+ Fortification. Standard, and flexible, can't go wrong with this. Good for a Taghmata army. 2 Thallax Cohorts with a single Magos Prime is enough to get you started, and you can start adding from there, perhaps a single Castellax, a couple of Krios Venators, a Thanatar, and maybe some Myrmidons. While at it, throw in some Triaros Armored Conveyor as Dedicated Transport for your infantry. There's also an optional Allied Detachment if you want to throw in your Solar Auxillia or Imperial Militia...or even an allied Questoris Knights Crusade FOC if you have that many points left! All you need is a single compulsory HQ and 1 compulsory Troops, with an optional Troops, Elites, Fast Attack and Heavy Support. No Lords of War though. This is a Jack of All Trades army that can reliably deal with whatever your opponent have, and you can throw in whatever you think you need, such as fast, mobile infantry with anti-vehicle options, tough, long-range dudes with anti-horde weaponry, and even resilient Monstrous Creatures that your opponent find difficult to take down while throwing their fearsome firepower all over the table. It's entire up to you.
There's also the Onslaught Force Organization Chart, which is optional. It removes one optional HQ, 1 compulsory Troops and 2 optional Troops, 1 optional Fast Attack, and takes away the optional Fortification completely but gives 1 compulsory Heavy Support and an extra Lord of War slot. Maybe I should try this for my Legio Cybernetica so that I don't need to spend so many points on 4 Castellax, and can perhaps make space for a Thallax Cohort or a tank. I don't think it's viable to throw in 2 Lords of War unless I play up to 3,000-point games...but adding a Knight Paladin alongside 2 Thanatar Siege-automata and 2 Castellax Battle-auotmata, with 6 Vorax Battle-automata running around thanks to Scout, is scary. This list caters more toward a heavy list of slow-moving, armored, tough creatures that hard to kill but pack incredible firepower. More so than the Battles in the Age of Darkness FOC, what with an extra Heavy Support and Lords of War slot. The downside is that you don't get Allies, and you can never start first unless you Seize the Initiative.
The Castellan Force Organization Chart allows you to bring a compulsory Fortification and 3 more optional ones, while increasing your compulsory Troops to 3. You still get that compulsory HQ, with a second optional one as per Onslaught FOC, 3 optional Troops, only 2 optional Elites, only 1 optional Fast Attack and 3 optional Heavy Support. Lords of War remain the same, one optional, and you can actually take Allies. Yay. If you prefer to hide behind your own Fortification and rely on a gunline, then this is for you. Turtle strategy. Bring a Magos Macrotek for 5 Fortifications!
The last and not least is the Leviathan Force Organization Chart that I've mentioned a few times above. If bringing an entire army of many models is not your thing, you can just buy and build a single model (or 3) before plopping it on the table and declaring that he is your one-man army. Good with Titans, as I already mentioned, and you can probably do the same with the Ordinatus engines. Even gives you an option to bring allies, but if you've the points, why not spend them all on a 2nd Lord of War? Bring 2 Titans, or 2 Ordinatus engines will scare the living hell out of anyone and ensure you won't get a game ever again. The Leviathan is your Lord of War, and he must be an Engine of Destruction or Great Beast type (meaning you can't use Questoris Knights for this - but don't fret! You already have a Questoris Knight Crusade FOC anyway! And it's better!), so your Titans and Ordinatus engines. One of them, the main one, is your Warlord, and is also a scoring unit while possessing his unique Leviathan Warlord Trait - Legendary Destroyer. Basically fire Overwatch with any of his weapons without the Primary Weapon ro Blast types, and can even fire them at different targets! He also has Monster Hunter and Tank Hunter, and units charging it, while rolling for Fear tests must roll an additional D6 and discard the lowest of their results. Brilliant.
- Already mentioned above is the single Ordinatus Ulator with an allied Questoris Knights detachment of 2 Knights Paladins (or changing one into a Knight Errant). For 1,850 points, that's your entire Super-heavy army there, ready to wreck everything with their overwhelming firepower that will put even the Onslaught FOC to shame. Best of all, you get to start first against the Onslaught FOC because of their Rolling Thunder Special Rule! OUCH.
So that's basically all I have for you guys. Thanks for reading, and if there are any changes I need to make, please let me know.
Other Links:
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