The Skitarii's Revenge

After the calamity a couple of weeks ago when Skitarii Marshal Rho 29-Tataki's maniple was annihilated, along with the destruction of Sir Kanda's Cerastus Knight Lancer, Skitarii Marshal Sigma 44-Kariya was forced to dispatch a new maniple. Archmagos Theta-Rho wanted Kuroishi secured, and to achieve that objective, they had to exterminate the Drukhari Corsairs who were now harrying the population of that world now that they had crushed all Imperial resistance.

Also, because so many Magi were whining about the Skitarii becoming a "horde army" or losing their "flavor" or whatever, the Omnissiah had put new doctrinas into place. The Fabricator-General of Mars, Ou Raskian, had sent a decree to enhance the Imperative Doctrinas and grant it to the Tech-priests and Electro-priests as well, not just the Skitarii and Kataphron battle-servitors. Not only that, their weapons, walkers, vehicles and equipment had received upgrades. The Skorpius Dunerider now had a firing deck, the Onager Dunecrawlers packed more firepower than before, the Skorpius Disintegrator did more damage, and the Ironstrider Ballistarii could shoot twice as much as before. The Sicarian Ruststalkers and Sicarian Infiltrators had received improved transonic and taser weapons to along with their new Imperative Doctrinas.

Of course, these enhancements meant that the costs and resources of manufacturing their weapons and training new Skitarii soldiers had gone up, which technically made them less of a "horde army," but the Adeptus Mechanicus could finally deploy more firepower than before. 44-Kariya thanked the Omnissiah for the new "balance dataslate."

<It's time to exterminate those filthy xenos,> he blurted in binharic. 428-Sigma Skitarii Hunter Cohort descended upon Kuroishi, determined to enact vengeance for 29-Tataki's demise, as well as the destruction of his maniple.

Unfortunately, during the time it took for 428-Sigma Cohort to reach Kuroishi, a misama had developed and enveloped the area. The Skitarii Ranger squads of Alpha-1 and Beta-2 scouted forward, securing objectives and returning the excavation site back to Mechanicus control. Servitors trundled forward to resume extraction activity, harvesting blackstone from the formerly abandoned site.

As 44-Kariya predicted, the Corsairs showed up not long after the stealthy Skitarii made their appearance. The sleek, spiky shapes of a Raider and a Ravager glided out of the webway, accompanied by Venoms. Scourges dropped out from the skies, spreading their wings and opening fire with dark lances. Onager Dunecrawler Beta-2 took a few hits, but his emanatus forcefield held strong, allowing him to survive. On the other side, Onager Dunecrawler Alpha-1 suffered a volley of dark lances from the Ravager, with a single beam shearing the walker open and leaving a smoldering crater across its ravaged hull.

Kabalite Warriors dropped out of the Venoms to hold positions, firing at Skitarii Ranger squad Beta-2. Fortunately, the emanatus force field protected them from the worst of the splinter rifles, but the combined firepower from the Venoms, Reavers and a couple of Kabalite Warriors saw at least half of the squad decimated.

<Time to hit them back!> 44-Kariya ordered.

<I see them,> 28-Tetsuo said. His squadron of 2 Ironstrider Ballistarii loped forward, their twin lascannons blazing. A Venom was blown apart by the ruby beams, spilling its passengers out into the open. Meanwhile, Onager Dunecrawler Alpha-1 finished it off with his neutron laser. His cognis heavy stubbers peppered the Kabalite Warriors that had fallen out of the Venom, decimating them.

Sato pushed his Armiger Warglaive forward, taking a potshot with his thermal spear, and despite the Cronos enduring the deadly blast, it staggered, maimed and almost falling. Onager Dunecrawler Beta-2 destroyed the Raider with his Icarus Array, forcing the Archon and his Incubi retinue to conduct an emergency disembark from the plummeting transport. The Scourges remained out of range, but Kaji in his Armiger Moirax unleashed his volkite veuglaire, taking out a bunch of Incubi that had just leaped off the wrecked Raider.

"What the hell?!" The Archon screamed. "That's like the majority of our firepower obliterated in the very first battle round! How is this fair?!"

The speeding Reavers blasted apart more Skitarii Rangers from squad Alpha-1, while focusing their melta lance on Onager Dunecrawler Alpha-1 and melting him to slag. The surviving Kabalite Warriors and their Venom charged the beleaguered survivors, attempting to drown them in melee. On the other side, Mandrakes emerged from the shadows to hunt the Skitarii Rangers from Beta-2, only to fail their charge.

<Eradicate them,> 44-Kariya instructed, turning around to assess the new threat. His Beta-2 Ranger squad whirled around and proceeded to pummel the vulnerable Mandrakes with galvanic, plasma, arc and transuranic rounds.

They never stood a chance.

Between the firepower of the Ironstrider Ballistarii and Onager Dunecrawler Beta-2, they took out a Venom, while Sato vaporized the Cronos with a well-placed melta shot. He then charged the Incubi and their Archon, running them over with tank shock and killing all but the Archon.

"Damn it!" The Archon howled. "This can't be happening!"

Meanwhile, Kaji had turned his Armiger Moirax around to help the swarmed Skitarii Rangers, who were all but wiped out by the Kabalite Warriors and Reavers. With a combination of volkite, rad-cleanser and siege claw, he was able to chew through the Reavers before turning his attention to the Venom. The Kabalite Warriors were thrown into disarray, scattering before the relatively small Knight suit.

The Archon retreated, allowing the Scourges to open fire on Sato's Armiger Warglaive, but thankfully, he was able to survive. They continued to dance away, not willing to engage Sato in combat. The Archon, though, wasn't as lucky. Sato hunted him down doggedly, and despite failing to do much with his melta against the Scourges, he did pulverize the fleeing Archon under his foot.

"That should do it," he said triumphantly.

By then, the Scourges were the only survivors. Upon realizing that they couldn't win, they fled.

<Whoa, the new Imperative Doctrinas and improved datasheets...ahem, I mean firepower of the maniples really helped out,> Sigma 44-Kariya remarked in amazement. <They made all the difference against the same Corsair force that annihilated Rho 29-Tataki's maniple.>

"But they'll be back," Sato warned, watching the fleeing Scourges. "And with a much larger force this time."

<If they do,> 44-Kariya replied. <Then we'll be ready for them.>

Knight Joust

I attended a Knight Joust today, organized at Dreamers Vault, Minneapolis! It was a really fun event! I brought my Cerastus Knight Lancer - by now, you guys should be familiar with Sir Kanda, ha ha. The Mechanicus Knight House of Kanda!

There was a Bloodthirster, a Lord of Change, a Questoris Knight Preceptor and 2 Knight Desecrators as well. We split into two teams of 3, and I ended up fighting alongside a Lord of Change and a Knight Desecrator. My Knight Lancer basically ran around the table, hiding behind buildings to evade the opposing Knight Desecrator's laser destructor - a painful lesson learned from the previous Knight Joust, but I eventually got into combat with him and...uh, killed him twice. Heh.

I also slew the Bloodthirster, who killed my Knight Desecrator teammate twice while suffering one death. The Knight Preceptor and Lord of Change had to engage each other after being teleported across the table, killing each other once before the Lord of Change died for good. Oh, to provide context, in a Knight Joust, each model is given a single resurrection token - so if you die once, you get to revive your Knight! But we only have two lives each, so if you die a second time, it's game over!

Though I tried to charge toward the surviving Knight Preceptor, my Knight Lancer got shot off the board, and died a second time (the first was the Laser Destructor). Whoops.

That said, being the last member of my team to survive, I was able to join the next round with the winning team. This time, we split into Imperium versus Chaos, with the Knight Desecrator and Lord of Change on one side, and me and the Knight Preceptor on the other.

The poor Lord of Change got skewered by my Knight Lancer twice, before I charged down the Knight Desecrator - who was cornered by me and my Knight Preceptor ally - and also destroyed him twice.

That meant the Knight Preceptor and my Knight Lancer made it to the final round!

Despite getting into close combat relatively early, I rolled a bunch of 1s and 2s...and promptly got hacked down by the Knight Preceptor's reaper chainsword. So I finished in second place. Hah! Well, that's totally fine. I didn't think I would get this far in the first place. And though it was a disappointing end, I did kill the Lord of Change and Knight Desecrator several times over, so my luck would run out eventually! And I got to play my Knight, so that's all that matters!

Good job, Sir Kanda! You did great! All right, we got wrecked by the Knight Preceptor, but hey, fellow Imperials. I don't mind losing to another Imperial. It means the Imperium remains safe! I think...

Anyway, got to work on the Crusade narrative - I'll publish those tomorrow, though.

Big new changes to the Adeptus Mechanicus!

I don't really write balance articles because I'm more of a narrative (Crusade) person, and so I don't bother talking about point changes, the meta, what's good and what's bad, etc. I just play my favorite units and detachments (Skitarii Hunter Cohort!). If you've been following my blog from the beginning, you'll know that I've always been a fan of the Skitarii, even back when I was an Imperial Guard player, jumping into the army in 2015, not a fan of Cult Mechanicus (wasn't a fan of the battle-servitors or Electro-priests, and I only like the robots - and even so, I prefer the Forge World Mechanicum battle-automata).

But I digress. I play Skitarii and still play Skitarii because I like them, even if people complain they are the worst army in the game (which actually isn't true, but they were in a bad spot). I was kind of happy with how they worked, particularly Skitarii Hunter Cohort, because it allowed me to field my Skitarii. Yeah, I just got crushed last week in spectacular fashion by Drukhari, but hey, it's still my army alongside Knights. My...uh, third army, behind Astra Militarum and my primary and first army, Knights. Actually, come to think of it, I might have played Skitarii more than Imperial Guard, but never mind.

Anyway, here are the changes!

To sum it up, this is what we have:

Protector Imperative gives our ranged weapons Heavy, improves our Ballistic Skill by 1 (so our whole army, except Kastelan robots and Cybernetica Datasmith, who will only get Doctrina Imperatives if we pick the Cohort Cybernetica detachment), and gives our opponent a -1 to hit in melee against Battleline units or units within 6" of Battleline ones.

Conqueror Imperative gives our ranged weapons Assault, improves our weapon Skill by 1 (again, same thing for Legio Cybernetica units), and improve our weapons' AP by 1 if they are Battleline or within 6" of a Battleline one. Both shooting and melee. Now let that sink in for a moment. Yeah. Now let your Serberys Sulfurhounds loose and set fire on your enemies, my friends!

Additionally, all our units, with the exception of Legio Cybernetica units, get Doctrina Imperatives now. That includes Electro-priests and Tech-priests.

Won't comment on Belisarius Cawl because I don't bring Named Characters for Crusades.

Ironstrider Ballistarii get 4 shots for twin cognis autocannons and 2 shots for twin cognis lascannons now, keep Sustained Hits 1, but lose twin-linked. They go up to 70 points, though, which is...yikes. But worth it for the additional firepower.

The damage for the Skorpius Disintegrator's ferrumite cannon has been improved from 3 to D6+1.

Skorpius Dunerider is supposed to have Firing Deck 2, but for some reason it's not in the balance dataslate. A mistake, I assume. They have gone up 5 points.

Sicarian Infiltrators now each have 3 attacks for their power weapons and taser goads.

Sicarian Ruststalkers (my guys!) each have 5 attacks and Strength 5 for their transonic blades (my version) and 4 attacks and Strength 5 for their transonic razors/Chordclaws. They have gone up 10 points to 75 per 5 guys now.

Onager Dunecrawlers saw the biggest increase, going up to 160 points from 130, but their weapons are more powerful now. 2 shots for the Daedalus missile launcher, 2D3 shots from D6 for both profiles of the Eradication Beamer, 3 shots for the Neutron laser and D6+2 damage from D6+1 (and apparently, it's no longer blast!), and 12 shots for the twin onager heavy phosphor blaster - plus keeping twin-linked to boot!

What does this mean? We have more firepower than before, better Ballistic Skill if we're in Protector Doctrina - not only do we improve our Ballistic Skill from 4+ to 3+, if we stand still, we benefit from Heavy and hit on 2+. That's an incredible buff for Skitarii gunline armies. More so, when you consider that we have just increased the volume of shots for stuff like Ironstrider Ballistarii and Onager Dunecrawlers. The Conqueror imperative benefits the Sicarian Ruststalkers, who have more attacks now - and with Devastating Wounds, that would be great. Just...wow.

This doesn't just benefit stuff like Skitarii Hunter Cohort. Imagine Cohort Cybernetica Kastelan Robots hitting on 2+ with Phosphor blasters, or them getting WS3+ with twin-linked fists. Well, I'm sure there will still be people not sold on it, but I'm a Crusade guy, and I think it's awesome.

As an aside, Imperial Guard got this:

Basically, we still get Lethal Hits, but we no longer need to stand still. Regiment units, such as infantry, cavalry/mounted and even Sentinels only get Lethal Hits when targeting non-Monsters and non-Vehicles, while Squadron units, such as Sentinels (again - so Sentinels are actually the most versatile unit that benefits most from this), Leman Russ tanks, Rogal Dorn, etc., get Lethal Hits when targeting Monsters or Vehicles. Of course, some lose out - my Stormblade or other Baneblade variants no longer get Lethal Hits, which...kind of suck, but whatever. Basilisks and Wyverns are less effective against infantry now, despite being artillery, since their Lethal Hits don't trigger against what they're supposed to be targeting. It's...kind of silly, really. Hydras, on the other hand, target flyers and aircraft, so it's good for them unless you're shooting flying infantry like jump pack units, but I think it's fine. Hellhounds don't really care because they use Torrent weapons, so Lethal Hits don't apply for them, and it probably helps the Devil Dogs more when they target vehicles and monsters with their melta cannons.

It does mean your heavy weapons teams and field ordnance batteries like heavy lascannons are better off packing anti-infantry firepower than anti-tank, and taking lascannons on them are sort of...bad now?

I won't lie, I do like the change, though, because Strengh 3 lasguns getting Lethal Hits when standing still and hurting a Toughness 12 Knight is silly, while lascannons on Sentinels and the like are still pretty good (while heavy flamers remain ineffective). So no complaints there, aside from the artillery being weirdly more effective against vehicles and Monsters than infantry.

One more thing - the Reinforcements Stratagem (Send in the Next Wave!) can now only be used once per game. No more infinitely respawning Karskins now. Yikes. Can't deny that I've been using that to my advantage, heh. So fair play there.

As for my beloved Knights, they clarified that we reroll one Hit roll and one Wound roll as opposed to rerolling a Hit roll of 1 and a Wound roll of 1, which was kind of silly, and is a direct buff. Somehow, I think that was from long ago, though - so that's...not new, I think? It's been that way for a while now.

Also, we can move within Engagement Range of non-Titanic models when walking over them, as long as we don't end that move within Engagement Range of them. So no more blocking, hah! Though we do need to roll for Battle-shock if trying to move through Terrain that are more than 4" in height. This is new because people were trying to block movement my Knights by getting their models close to terrain and claiming I can't squeeze between them. Not gonna work now!

As an aside, Forge World Knights and the Knight Paladin receive points cuts - the Paladin is now 405 points, same as the Knight Errant - and the Knight Lancer drops from 465 points to 430. Wow! The Atrapos and Styrix also saw further points cuts, so yay.

Now the question is...how should I change up my Skitarii Hunter Cohort list? We'll see on Saturday!

The Archon's Revenge

"I told you I'll be back!" The Archon cackled as his Sky Splinter Corsair Raiders...thing sailed from the webway. "I've brought more firepower to take down that Knight of yours!"

They had swapped one of the Ravagers out for Scourges with dark lances, a trio of skimmers with a single heat lance, and a Kronos. Packing more long-distance firepower this time, the Drukhari surged ahead, intent on revenge.

<That can't be good,> Skitarii Marshal Rho 29-Tataki murmured as he gazed at the approaching Drukhari slash Corsair fleet. Dark lances were already stabbing out and punching holes through Sir Kanda's reeling Cerastus Knight Lancer. <Of course they're aiming for our most vital strategic asset first.>

"They really want revenge, huh?" Kanda muttered as his Knight buckled under the repeated dark lances from the Scourges, Raider and Ravager. As few had punched through his ion gauntlet shield and torn away cabling and ceramite chunks.

A Venom swooped, with a bunch of Kabalite Warriors hopping out and adding their volley of splinter rifles to the Venom's splitter cannons. A second Venom, after unloading a bunch of Kabalite Warriors that proceeded to grab hold of an unstable archeotech located under a ferrocrete bunker, joined in, reducing Skitarii Ranger squad Alpha-1 to just three guys. Meanwhile, the skimmers fired at Skitarii Ranger squad Beta-2, but failed to kill anyone, their heat lance and splinters missing the stealthy infantry.

Kanda made a last-ditch charge, but failed to do anything with his Cerastus spear, while the Venom with the Kabalite Warriors swerved away, staying out of range of his devastating weapon. The Drukhari had clearly learned to fear the destructive power of the Cerastus shock lance and keep their distance. 29-Tataki tried to direct his forces forward, with Delta Yari leading a charge toward the skimmers. The rest of the Skitarii Rangers stayed put, but their galvanic fire was ineffective against the skimmers, while the plasma caliver blew up in the bionic hands of its wielder, wreathing him in superheated gases and melting his augmetics. At least one of the skimmers went down, though, blown apart by the plasma in return.

29-Tataki personally led his Skitarii Vanguard squad to mow down the Kabalite Warriors with radium rounds, while the Skorpius Dunerider destroyed the Venom they were in. Three of his squad aimed at the Scourges instead, killing 2 of them and forcing the others to duck.

However, the Drukhari were gleefully cutting apart the poor Skitarii by now. The surviving Scourges took down Kanda's Knight with their dark lances, and the resulting explosion took out a couple of Skitarii Rangers, along with damaging the Venom and killing one Kabalite Warrior. The Ravager then took potshots at the Skorpius Dunerider, punching holes through its shuddering hull. The surviving Kabalite Warriors then erased Skitarii Ranger Alpha-1 from existence.

The Incubi disembarked from the Raider and charged the Sydonian Dragoons, cutting two down before they could fight back. Mandrakes slipped out of the shadows and massacred over half of squad Beta-2, forcing the remaining Skitarii Rangers to fall back so that a retreating Skorpius Dunerider could eliminate them with volleys from its cognis heavy stubber array. The surviving Sydonian Dragoon retaliated with his taser lance, and Yari Delta felled five Incubi with a single sweep.

However, it wasn't enough.

The Skitarii Vanguard finally wiped out the Scourges, but that was about it. They could do nothing about the Kronos or the Raider or Ravager.

Though the Archon and Incubi weren't able to hurt Yari Delta, who killed yet another couple of Incubi in return, the Drukhari had more tricks up their sleeves. The Skimmer lacerated the Skitarii Rangers with some eviscerating thingy, and dark lances from the Ravager blew up the Sydonian Dragoon, who wiped out the surviving Skitarii Rangers while also killing a couple of Incubi, leaving just two and 1 Archon. The Raider's dark lance, along with the Kabalite Warriors' special weapons, wrecked the already heavily damaged Skorpius Dunerider. The Kabalite Warriors, Raider and Kronos charged into the Skitarii Vanguard and massacred them, leaving just the Skitarii Marshal, who retaliated with his control stave and took out all the Kabalite Warriors.

Unfortunately, though the Kronos failed to best him in combat, it eventually retreated, along with the Raider, so that the Ravager could disintegrate the courageous Rho 29-Tataki with triple dark lances.

...with that, the Drukhari had exterminated the Skitarii.

"Ha ha ha ha!" The Archon roared in laughter, triumph and arrogant. "I told you I'll get my revenge!"