Ignatius Strikes Down Zephon Again!

"Oh, hey! It's the IXth legion!" I waved at our brothers, who were also clad in crimson. Then I frowned when I noticed something weird. They were approaching us...somewhat aggressively. "Um, why do they look like they want to kill us?"

"Because they do?" The brother-sergeant of my Cataphractii Terminator retinue snorted. Hathor Mathias was rolling his eyes and sighing. He wasn't one of the Sekhmet, but like them, he carried a kopesh sword. Cataphractii Terminator was still durable, whether donned by the Sekhmet or regular legionnaires. And Hathor was a veteran. "Look, Ignatius, I hate to break it to you, but as much as you preach about being loyal to the Emperor, the rest of the Imperium regards us as Traitors."

"Ugh..." I grimaced. I hated that. The XVth had always been loyal, but ever since our gene-father broke the Edict of Nikaea and the Wolves razed our homeworld of Prospero, we were cast out as traitors. Damn it. And I was Terran born too, so it wasn't as if the burning of Prospero hurt me that deeply.

Anyway, the Blood Angels were coming in force. Using my mind's eye, I could see their forces arrayed against us. There were two Contemptor Dreadnoughts, a couple of squads of tactical marines in Rhinos, two squads of plasma tactical support squads, a Kratos tank, a Predator, a lumbering Leviathan Dreadnought, and two huge squads of Terminators - one Cataphractii armed with lightning claws, and the other bearing the heraldry of the revered Crimson Paladins with their esoteric gravity shields or something.

Yeah, they could have whatever fancy tech they liked. Those shields weren't going to stand up to our mind bullets.

"All right then." I exhaled wearily. "If it's a fight they want, then it's a fight they'll get. For the Emperor!"

The irony wasn't lost on me even as my Achaean Configuration advanced to meet them. The Predators, blessed by the mind-sight of the Numerologist Cabal, the Order of Ruin calculating numbers to perfection and laying down trajectories for the plasma executioner destroyer and lascannons to take out the enemy Predator with incredible precision. That was all we could do for now, unfortunately, as most of our guns remained out of range.

The Blood Angels surged to meet us, also not able to shoot much because they were also out of range. The Contemptor Dreadnought with lascannons fired, scoring a couple of hits against our Predators, though it survived somehow, despite the Librarian's attempts to erect a kine shield backfiring and him eating a couple of wounds from perils. The Numerologist immediately set work to repairing the Predator, soothing its injured machine spirit. The Kratos bellowed, its battle cannon erupting in fury as it fired upon me and my Terminator retinue, but even as the explosions caved a crater around us, we...survived the blow. The heavy bolters fared little better, the detonating shells glancing off our heavy ceramite. The volkite culverins, on the other hand, almost incinerated the hand of one of my brothers, probably because the Terminator armor had been weathered down by the explosions.

Nonetheless, relying on the arts of the Pavoni, we were able to continue advancing without slowing down. Firing our volkite chargers and aetherfire blasters at the Crimson Paladins, we charged at them even as two of their number fell. They returned fire, the assault cannon choking, but otherwise not doing much, and the injured brother fell. Meanwhile, pondering Castellax-Achea automata bombarded the plasma tactical support squad from afar with aetherfire, reducing them to just one or two men. The Terminators with lightning claws also suffered bombardment from a second unit of Castellax-Achea, losing maybe a couple. A Contemptor Dreadnought staggered, hit by plasma and lascannons from the Predators, but didn't fall.

While we managed to cut down two more Crimson Paladins with our kopesh swords and achaean force or Pavoni arts, my Biomancy discipline allowing me to crush one of them with a single blow by more than doubling my strength, they hit back and took down one of my brothers in return. At the back, the Contemptor Dreadnoughts traded more fire, but one of its lascannon shots was blocked by the Librarian's kine shield, his psychic attempts more successful this time. One tactical squad was laid low by a combination of the Kratos's shells and defensive weapons, as well as a Blood Angels tactical squad's fire, but their return fire cut down one IXth legionnaire in return. Though a few of the Aetherfire blaster guys were also put down by volkite culverins. A Rhino was crippled by the grav-flux bombards of the Leviathan Dreadnought, but the Castellax-Achea remained unperturbed, their armor and atomantic deflectors shielding them from the gravitic waves. A second Contemptor Dreadnought continued to rinse the already beleageuered squad of Aetherfire blaster dudes with Kheres assault cannon rounds, though a couple of them managed to endure the high caliber rounds despite their brother cut down beside them.

"From the skies we descend! With fury we shall reap!"

Zephon came screaming from the skies above, his retinue of destroyers accompanying him with their chainswords revving. They chose to swoop upon my Terminator retinue, their chainswords revving and bitting against the reinforced ceramite. I smacked one of the Crimson Paladins aside to confront Zephon, who was bellowing a challenge to me.

"I, the Bringer of Sorrows, shall cut you down, Traitors!"

"That's why I keep telling you, we aren't Traitors!" I complained as I met his challenge, raising my kopesh sword to parry his strikes. His skillful riposte cut open my Cataphractii armor and left a wound across my chest, causing me to stagger. The guy's furious charge was filled with rage and strength that left me reeling. However, I drew upon my Pavoni arts to brace myself, strengthening and toughening myself to endure more blows, and swung my glowing kopesh sword in return.

Strength 10 AP4 (Rending 4+). All Zephon needed was to fail a single save...and he did. A single 1 saw him splattered across the ground as I Instant Death-ed him with my Pavoni powered kopesh sword.

"Hear me!" I yelled as the Blood Angels went still at the death of their Warlord. "We are not Traitors! Can we call a truce? You can retreat, we'll continue fighting for the Emperor against the real Traitors! Okay?"

The surviving Blood Angels looked at each other, and they quietly withdrew. I sighed in relief, glad that no more blood had to be spilled unnecessarily this day. They probably saw no reason to trust me, but time was up, and apparently, greater forces than Zephon had demanded their retreat (mostly because the local gaming store closed at 8pm sharp, and we had to stop the game, but let's just pretend it was the Emperor's will). I bade them farewell and turned back to my guys.

"Okay, let's continue gathering intelligence on the Arch-traitor's movements and report to Lord Dorn, shall we?"

With a weary chorus of assent, my guys followed me back toward the box...ahem, basilica where the data-caches were stored. More work had to be done before we could find a way to stop the Traitors' advance toward Holy Terra.

Little did we know, our little skirmish would have ripple effects on the future 10,000 years from now...

First Matched Play Game for 10th Edition

I had my first Matched Play game for 10th edition today. I've been playing nothing but Crusade, and haven't actually played a single Matched Play game before. So it was my Imperial Knights versus Adeptus Custodes. I can't really remember what his list was, exactly, but it was something like this:

Adeptus Custodes

Shield Captain

Blade Champion

3 squads of Allarus Terminators, I think? 1 block of 6 or something.

Custodian Guards

Custodian Wardens

2 squads of 3 Venatari (the jump pack dudes)

Callidus Assassin

I think it was something like that, but I can't really remember, for the life of me.

I brought my usual Knight Lance, which was 3 Armiger Warglaives, a Cerastus Knight Lancer, a Questoris Knight Errant and a Dominus Knight Castellan. I believe I had second turn? So he ran his Custodian Wardens toward the center of the table while the Venatari were in deep strike. The other squad of Custodians moved to the corner, running as well.

Oh, right. His Secondary Objectives or whatever they're called in 10th edition now are Bring It Down and Deploy Teleport Homers. So he did one Teleport homer near the center. I think it wasn't a very exciting first turn for him. On the other hand, I shot a bunch of Custodians off the board, then had my Lancer charge into the Wardens in the center and killed a few between Tank Shock's 6 mortal wounds and his shock lance. Between my three Armigers, Knight Lancer and Knight Errant, I managed to claim 4 objectives.

The Allarus Terminators moved up, and through shooting, took off 11 wounds off my Knight Errant. While my shooting was excellent, my saves were terrible. I couldn't make any armor or invulnerable saves. Oh, well. Anyway, the Knight Lancer was then charged and destroyed by the Allarus Terminators, only for me to roll a 6 for Explodes! And dealing a bunch of mortal wounds around. Heh! Great revenge. The Custodians and Shield Captain charged my Armiger Warglaive at the corner and blew him up. Yikes. But I managed to hold onto three objectives, scoring me 15 for the second battle round.

I tried to shoot the Wardens and Allarus Terminators off the table, but I think I only succeeded in getting rid of a few here and there, and despite charging my Armiger into the Wardens, I killed maybe everyone except the Blade Champion? Then the Venetarii deep struck and killed my second Armiger, while the Allarus Terminators went in and maybe did some damage to my Knight Errant? Fortunately, both my Armiger Warglaive and Knight Errant in the center survived, and in retaliation, I killed one squad of Allarus, one squad of Venatari, and the Blade Champion. Or something like that, I can't remember. Unfortunately, the Allarus Terminators proceeded to teleport away or something? Though one remained to kill my Knight Errant, along with the Venatarii, but my Armiger Warglaive was able to survive.

I was leading on primary, mostly, but I couldn't get secondaries, which was why I ended up falling behind. Even so, while I killed 2 Venatari, one survived, and I also killed one Allarus Terminator, while the other survived. My sole surviving Armiger Warglaive fell back to another objective to steal it from another, but that was pretty much it. That was the last turn, I think? I did score a lot for primary, but because of my failure to get any secondaries except the first turn, I think I only had 70 points to his 91 or something like that. The Knights succumbed to the strength of the Custodes, though I pretty much blasted the majority of his army to bits. Oh, well.

It was a fun game and learning experience, but hopefully, I'll be able to return to Crusade next week! Till then!

Before the Fallen

"Wasn't I supposed to be an Interemptor? When did I become a Veteran? Is this a retcon?"

"What are you babbling about, Drago?"

"Nothing, brother-Sergeant Oakley." I bowed my head, feeling sheepish at my silly outburst. I no longer carried a plasma burner, but at least I had a plasma repeater. Well, my brothers called it a "plasma repeater," but it was simply two plasma guns glued together to represent their twin-linked rule. For some reason, that halved their range, though it gave us more shots and less of a chance of blowing ourselves up when the weapon gets hot! So I had no complaints.

In any event, I happened to be promoted to a Legion Veteran for now, though I bet I would be demoted to a Hellblaster when I returned as a Risen 10,000 years in the future, but I could worry about that later.

"Hello? Brother Drago? You there?"

Oakley knocked his gauntlet against my helm. I coughed and nodded.

"Good, because we'll be needing you. I don't know why the Word Bearers are here, but it can't be good. Knight-Commander Pervical has ordered a purge of Pallidus, and so we shall exterminate those heretics from the surface of the planet."

"Are we Deathwing now?" I wondered out loud, noticing that my Hexagrammaton had changed. That explained the power sword.

"Yeah. We were always Deathwing. Unless you want to switch to Dreadwing in the future."

"Oh, I definitely want to. Just for this battle, I'll follow your lead, okay?"

Unfortunately, we had to go on foot. To the east, a five-man support tactical squad, all armed with plasma repeaters, advanced. They were accompanied by the newly inducted...uh, Inductii. Even though Lord Luther should be running his little recruitment program at full tilt back in Caliban, the on-field losses after the Thramas Crusade had forced us to run accelerated recruitment programs, and for some reason, we decided to arm all our new recruits with volkite chargers because...well, because we were the First Legion and had access to the Armory of Old Night. 'Nuff said.

They were pretty raw, though, and I didn't fancy their chances. Apparently, attrition rate among the Inductii was high, and this was their first combat. Hell, I think this was the first combat for this particular battle group. We were all mostly just rolled off fresh from the Legiones Astartes Battle Group series from a nearby forge world, and our power armor were freshly stamped by the archmagos there.

In contrast, the Word Bearers approaching our position looked like veterans. They appeared odd, though. Their Veterans seemed...uh, corrupted somehow? With all those weird horns, gribblies and appendages growing out of their distorted armor.

"What the hell has Lorgar or Erebeus been feeding those guys?" I wondered out loud.

"Ignorance is a shield against the Corrupt," Oakely quoted from somewhere. "Ignore them. Just exterminate them with extreme prejudice, as our father would have wanted."

"He entrusted me with the task itself," Percival said through the vox. The Land Raider Proteus that his Cataphractii Terminator retinue was riding in had rolled up, its six lascannons bristling. "To purify Pallidus of whatever taint the XVIIth was engulfing it in."

Pallidus was one of the edge worlds of Ultramar. Apparently, the Word Bearers and World Eaters had run roughshod over the five hundred worlds, enacting some sort of...Shadow Crusade while we were launching our Thramas Crusade against Konrad Curze and his VIIIth. Once we were done with that, the Lion had dispatched a small scout fleet toward the Realm of Ultramar when he found the path back to Holy Terra blocked by some kind of...warp storm or something, one of a scale we had never seen before, and our little scouting force landed on Pallidus where the Word Bearers were conducting their Shadow Crusade.

Hence, we were here to do the XIIIth a favor. Yay.

Two Deredeo Dreadnoughts lumbered behind us, slow but deadly. The Ancients, Gawaine and Lancelittle. Their hellfire plasma carronades were lighting up with an azure blue, even as the corrupted Contemptor Dreadnought of the XVIIth from the opposite side opened fire with its autocannon. The heavy rounds struck Gawaine, rocking him, but the high caliber rounds failed to penetrate his adamantine armor. Gawaine returned fire, the plasma streams from his Hellfire plasma carronade slamming against the Contemptor Dreadnought in retaliation. The atomantic deflector flared white-hot as it struggled against the strain, before it flickered out. Superheated matter melted parts of the corrupted hull, but the Contemptor Dreadnought shrugged off the worst of the damage and continued plodding forward implacably. Meanwhile, the Breachers fired their boltguns at the tactical support squad, but they ducked under cover and mostly escaped unscathed.

"Charge! We have sworn a Vow and shall see it Unbroken!" Percival roared.

The Land Raider Proteus rumbled toward an approaching squad of Cataphractii Terminators, all armed with lightning claws and accompanied by a cackling Esoterist. The venerable vehicle's lascannons opened up, the ruby beams stabbing at the listing Contemptor Dreadnought, and with a groan, it went up in a tremendous explosion that consumed a nearby Word Bearer. The tactical squad withdrew and continued moving forward, taking cover under a building, while the Word Bearer Veterans and their Praetor hid behind the Breachers.

"Oh? Hiding like the cowardly heretics you are? Gentlemen, let's rinse them of their cover." The sergeant of the plasma repeater squad hefted up his weapon and gestured. The five brothers aimed and let loose volleys of plasma at the Breachers, the twin-linked weapons glowing hot. Three times, the weapons overheated and vented superheated gas into its wielder, but their power armor protected them from the boiling steam. In return, the Breachers fell, their shields melting from the superheated matter and the Marines falling to the devastating bombardment.

However, heretics as they were, they were still Legiones Astartes. At an order from their sergeant, who was wearing relic armor, they formed a disciplined line even as their brothers fell, returning fire with transhuman reflexes. One of the brothers carrying a plasma repeater was bowled over, his helm cracked as explosive bolts detonated and pulped his head within.

That wasn't good.

Gawaine and Lancelittle opened up with their own plasma and missile salvos, past the decimated Breacher squad and into the Veterans with the Praetor. The first bombardment, with Gawaine unleashing maximal fire, crashed with the force of a meteor and obliterated at least three Veterans outright and even killed the sole survivor of the Breacher squad. The second salvo from Lancelittle finished the remaining Veterans and Praetor off, with the Sergeant falling to a missile before the superheated plasma incinerated the screaming Praetor.

The Cataphractii Terminators, led by Percival, charged the Terminators with lightning claws, but they tripped over a rock and failed to crash into the Word Bearers, who mocked them by waving their crackling claws condescendingly. The Esoterist chuckled and unleashed void darts upon them, channeling foul powers from the warp and bombarding them with all sorts of psychic trickery. The Cataphractii Terminators weathered the storm, though one reeled, his armor cracked open by the intense empyreanic energies.

It didn't take long for the Word Bearers to charge into the Cataphractii Terminators, but Percival issued a challenge to the Esoterist, who gleefully accepted. Meanwhile, the tactical squad that had seen a man go down to the Contemptor Dreadnought's explosion had gotten into position, and with precise shots, they wiped out the plasma repeater squad, killing three of them outright. The sergeant managed to react, instructing his men to return fire before they fell, and plasma bathed the tactical squad, though only two of the Astartes succumbed to the plasma despite the raging superheated matter melting entire walls. The plasma repeater exploded in the hands of one of the brothers, and this time, his power armor - already compromised earlier from the boiling steam - was no longer able to withstand it. They were annihilated.

"That can't be good," I muttered, looking from afar. Though we were running, we still hadn't reached within range of our plasma pistol, plasma repeater or volkite serpentas. And the tactical squad was going to shift their targets to us next.

As if the annihilation of the plasma repeater squad had triggered something, the Cataphractii Terminators received Favors from the Dark Gods and they seemed to grow somehow, their weapon skill and movement improving, as well as their Strength (I think?). They were easily overwhelming the Terminators in combat, despite their Deathwing Hexagrammaton giving them a bonus +1 to their sword skills. Fortunately, the Cataphractii terminator held against the crackling, shredding blows of the lightning claws, though one guy appeared to fall when he was stabbed by a claw, his armor already compromised by the void dart from earlier. Yikes.

Percival, though, was not to be outdone. With superlative skill, he executed a Murderous Strike that took off the head of the Esoterist, while the latter was unable to land a single hit on him. The beheaded Esoterist staggered, as if not realizing that he was dead, then fell to his knees. With a contemptuous manner, Percival kicked the corpse over before returning his attention to the Cataphractii Terminators assaulting his retinue.

For some reason, his swordsmanship didn't flow as well. Perhaps a curse left behind by the now dead Esoterist, which slowed his movements? He was unable to take out a Cataphractii Terminator, though they were able to wound another one of our brothers in return. One of them staggered, stabbed by the sergeant's calibanite warblade, but didn't fall.

"Let's keep going!" Oakley ordered, and we continued running. The Land Raider Proteus, having disgorged its passengers earlier, turned about and fired its lascannons, though only two tactical marines died. Behind us, Gawaine and Lancelittle directed their fire at the tactical marines hidden inside the building and blew them out, wiping them to a man. The legionnaires weren't going down without a fight, though, and they returned fire with their boltguns, damaging Gawaine's frame and leaving a huge crack in his torso.

Back in the fight, Percival finally recovered from whatever curse the Esoterist weaved on him. With a determined yell, he cut down one of the Terminators with a Murderous Strike. Another Terminator fell to the Word Bearers, but they had finally taken down two of them in return, leaving just three. Having lost the duel, the XVIIth legionnaires thought valor was the better part of discretion, and decided to flee.

From the east, the last remaining tactical squad moved up and assaulted the Inductii with their boltguns, taking down two of the newest recruits who were dumb enough to stand in the open and not dive for cover when the shooting started. The sergeant barked at his raw recruits and shoved the remaining Inductii toward the nearest ruin for cover.

The Land Raider Proteus traversed about and fired at the remaining Cataphractii Terminators, and one died. The others continued to run. Meanwhile, Gawaine and Lancelittle focused fire on the tactical squad and avenged the fallen Inductii by reducing them to molten ruin. So much plasma engulfed the area it looked little more than a scorched crater.

"...uh, isn't that overkill?" I remarked, starting at the smoldering rock.

"There's no such thing as overkill when it comes to purging heretics and slaughtering traitors," Oakley reprimanded me harshly. He nodded toward the duel where Percival and the Terminators caught up with the two remaining Word Bearers Terminators. This time, they cut down a second, and the Sergeant broke in morale and ran away. Ugh. There was nowhere for him to run, and I felt pity for him.

"Job's done!" Percival yelled, waving at us to consolidate our gains and check our losses. "Great work, everyone. Pallidus should be clear for now. We've shattered the XVIIth's strike! Hopefully, we can continue this progress throughout the Realm of Ultramar and drive both the XVIIth and the XIIth out of the five hundred worlds before our father arrives!"

I thought that was a bit too optimistic, but said nothing. It was not my place to question the Knight-commander. Instead, I glanced at the plasma repeater in my hand and wondered when I would get the chance to switch back to being an Interemptor with a plasma burner.

Maybe next time, eh?

Tech Guard in Horus Heresy

I was excited to see Warhammer Community post an Exemplary Battle featuring Tech Guard today! And for a moment, I thought we could finally field Skitarii in Horus Heresy.

Unfortunately, nope.

Instead, all we get are three provenances for Imperial Militia. The PDF looks cool with all the lore, and apparently, it's about the battle for Constanix II as featured in the Corax short story, Soulforge. Cool.

There are, of course, a few problems with them. Firstly, astute readers will notice that despite these militia forces having ties to the Mechanicum, they do not make your Imperial Militia Sworn Brothers with the Mechanicum, unlike the Cyber Augmented provenance. Obviously, we're going to house rule it, but c'mon.

Secondly, though you can give your Grenadiers arc rifles and call them Skitarii, they seem a bit, uh, weird. Doesn't seem like we're getting any galvanic rifles, though your Force Commander or Skitarii Marshal certainly gets access to his radium pistol and corposant stave. Then you have Forge Remnants that give you Krios squadrons for tanks, which is cool and all, but...I dunno, you might as well take Tech-thralls and Krios in a primary Mechanicum detachment.

I believe Augmented Levy basically allows you to use Adsecularis Tech-thralls as Troops. However, take note you cannot take more non-Levy units (except HQ or Characters) than Levy units, so no taking 2 Levy units, then taking 3 Grenadiers or something like that.

It feels a bit lackluster, and doesn't even seem like a good holdover for Skitarii. I really think Skitarii deserve their own datasheet. We don't need the Ironstriders or vehicles or even winged Ptexarii. We just need Skitarii as Line Troops, with their galvanic rifles or radium carbines, like depicted in the Horus Heresy novels and Siege of Terra. C'mon! Please. If this Exemplary Battle was about taking Skitarii as Troops for Mechanicum, that would be awesome. Or, if you really want to, since technically Taghmata Mechanicum was different from the Skitarii Legions, give us a free PDF army for Skitarii or something!

Oh, well. Anyway, I don't know what else to say other than that I'm disappointed. I'll be sticking to my volkite Household Militia for now.

Retrospective: Adeptus Mechanicus War Convocation and Formations

After yesterday's post on my memories on when the first Adeptus Mechanicus codexes were released as Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus separately, I thought I should do another "Blast from the Past" article because I felt a sense of nostalgia. Now, I think 7th edition was okay, but I prefer 8th edition, and now 10th edition to 7th, though I do have some fondness for the old blast templates and armored value facings that we still have in Horus Heresy. That's why I play Horus Heresy a lot too. But I really like 10th edition too...unfortunately, it seems like most people don't really like playing against my Knights. Oh, well.

Aside from Knights, though, I think it'll be fun to talk about what happened when Adeptus Mechanicus first burst into the scene in 7th edition. To do that, I'll need to talk about Formations.

Formations? What are Formations? Simply put, back in 7th edition, you usually have to put together an army via the standard Force Organization Chart, which looked something like this - if it looks familiar, that's because it's the very same one we use in Horus Heresy.

Yeah, apparently, it's taken from XVI Legion.com

You have a Combined Arms Detachment, with an optional Allied Detachment. Minimum is 1 compulsory HQ and 2 compulsory Troops, then add whatever you want. There are special detachments for Imperial Knights, who can take 3-5 Lords of War (same as the Super-heavy Detachment in 8th edition). And then you have the weird "unique" Detachments for smaller armies such as Skitarii, who are obviously missing the HQ, and Harlequins who also didn't have HQ.

Yeah, it was a wild time. I'm glad they recombined Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus into Adeptus Mechanicus and gave us a Skitarii Marshal. The weird detachments just made things more confusing. To top it off, with the release of the Necrons codex in 2015, we had something called Formations. Unlike the Combined Arms Detachment or normal Force Organization Chart that you used for your armies, Formations instead are comprised of specific units that are based on a theme, are subjected to restrictions, but in return they gain powerful, "thematic" rules. An example would be the Skitarii Battle Maniple.

The Restrictions may say none, but it's actually more rigid than it looks like. For example, in the Battle Maniple, you can only take exactly 1 squad of Skitarii Vanguard and 1 squad of Skitarii Rangers. The customizability lies in the size of squads, and back then you can take 5-men squads. And 5-men squads can take 2 special weapons (e.g. 5-men Vanguard can take 2 plasma calivers) and a 10-men squad can take 3 special weapons (10 Rangers can take 3 arc rifles or 2 arc rifles and 1 transuranic arquebus). Oh, those were the days. However, you can't take 2 squads of Skitarii Vanguard. Just 1. And if you take 1, you must take 1 squad of Skitarii Rangers, because that's what the Formation requires. Obviously, according to the Formation, you're required to take one of every datasheet available to the Skitarii at the time, with the only exception being Sydonian Dragoons or Ironstrider Ballistarii, but they're from the same kit anyway. The issue, of course, is that you can take up to 6 of each per unit, so you ideally would have to buy 2 boxes of them. And for the rest, you need to buy 2 boxes of each, such as the Skitarii Vanguard/Rangers and Sicarian Ruststalkers/Infiltrators. Yeah, clearly Games Workshop is trying to milk us.

Anyway, your basic Skitarii Formation would look something like this:

Don't think the Battle Maniple is enough? You want to run more than 1 of each unit? Well, then you'll have a Super Formation that's made up of several Formations. I introduce to you the War Cohort.

Yeah...Formations are designed to milk the players of their cash. But I don't think anyone cares about the War Cohort. Most people go with the Battle Maniple because it's simply part of one larger Adeptus Mechanicus army. Instead, the Battle Maniple is a prerequisite to the super popular (at that time) super Formation, the Adeptus Mechanicus War Convocation.

Yup. That's the Adeptus Mechanicus War Convocation. The Skitarii Battle Maniple is just one Formation within it. You also need a Cult Mechanicus Battle Congregation Detachment, which is this:

There's obviously a typo (probably because of the Skitarii codex), the skull is meant to be the HQ, not Troops. But yeah, this was back when the Tech-priest Dominus was your only HQ, and you can only ever take one for your army. Now, we're encouraged to spam Characters to attach them to units for buffs, but back then, Characters were Independent Characters that you also attach to units, and if they're your Warlord, well, you get Warlord Traits.

The Oathsworn Knight Detachment is just 1-3 Knights. Back then, people played 1,850 points instead of 2,000 (I don't know why). With the steep requirements of the Skitarii Battle Maniple costing almost half your army, most people can only take 1 Knight anyway. But the Adeptus Mechanicus War Convocation was ridiculously powerful. As you can see, all weapons and wargear upgrades are free - you can guess how powerful that is. And plasma weapons don't get hot! So plasma caliver spam, as well as plasma Kataphron Destroyers. Needless to say, this was 7th edition at one of its finest, except that the Space Marines took the cake with their free Dedicated Transports (Rhinos and Razorbacks) when they took the Super Formation known as Gladius Strike Force.

Point, though, is that you can tell that Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus are meant to be one combined army. Ideally, the War Convocation was supposed to be how Adeptus Mechanicus was run, and you were encouraged to combine them all together like that. Hence the benefits and free stuff. It also got people to buy all the shiny new models from the Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus line. I know I fell for it, hook, line and sinker, though...I would have done something similar anyway. I always wanted to play Skitarii, I loved robots, and I already had Knights - Imperial Knights were my first army. But would I have built the Kataphron Destroyers as plasma? Would I have bothered with the Sicarian Infiltrators or even the Ironstriders? Maybe not. But for the Formation, I ended up assembling the Infiltrators, the Kataphrons and Ironstriders that I might otherwise not have gotten.

...I was new to the hobby back then, so even with this supposedly overpowered, cheesy super Formation, I couldn't win any games with them. Oh, well. All a learning experience. But yeah. You'll notice the theme here. They were designed to be one combined army.

Then 8th edition hit.

Yup, no longer Codex: Skitarii. It's Adeptus Mechanicus now, with both Cult Mechanicus and Skitarii rolled into one. No longer do we need to have unique detachments without any HQ, the Tech-priest Dominus is our HQ now! I think they added the Tech-priest Enginseer here too, and this was the first time he moved from an Elite to a HQ role because they realized that Adeptus Mechanicus had too little HQ options. Not only were Cult Mechanicus and Skitarii combined into one book, guess what? We have Questor Mechanicus - or Mechanicus Knights datasheets in the book!

Speaking of which, even before 8th edition, there was a precedent that showed they were meant to be the same army. We had Start Collecting! Skitarii where...you guess it, the HQ was the Tech-priest Dominus.

It had its own special Formation rules if you field them together like that. It was called the Dominus Maniple Formation. Apparently, you can pick an enemy unit within 18" and in line of sight to the Tech-priest Dominus, then all units in this Formation re-roll hit rolls against it during the shooting phase. Cool. But yeah, the Tech-priest Dominus is clearly meant to be the HQ for Adeptus Mechanicus, so it was silly to split the codexes.

So we come back to...yeah, the Adeptus Mechanicus War Convocation. But hey, did you think the War Convocation wasn't enough? Did you want something more...uh, excessive? Well, during the Gathering Storm campaign, particularly in Fall of Cadia, we have something even more extravagant! Introducing the Conclave Acquisitorius!

The...what now? Yeah, Belisarius Cawl, 1-2 Battle Maniples or 1 War Cohort (3 Battle Maniples), 1 Holy Requisitioner (I believe that's a Formation that requires a Tech-priest Dominus and a couple of Kataphron Breacher units), 0-1 Cohort Cybernetica if you like your Kastelan Robots, the Electro-priests which are thankfully optional, and even a Baronial Court of Imperial Knights (3-5) if you think 1-2 aren't enough.

Obviously, nobody fielded this because it was too much. It was impossible to field this in 1,850 or 2,000 point games, you'll need...a lot. So everyone stuck to the War Convocation instead.

But hey, what if you just want to play Adeptus Mechanicus normally as they were intended, instead of being forced to split them between Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus? Well, Fall of Cadia has you covered too!

F the fancy "Grand Convocation Detachment" name. This is simply a normal Force Organization Chart (or Combined Arms Detachment) for Adeptus Mechanicus. Obviously, if you really want to min-max for the benefits, you try to max out the units in the Detachment, but...again, nobody did that because it was highly impractical, and you couldn't fit them all under 2,000 points. So forget it. Furthermore, this only increased the number of books you had to cart around. Like, c'mon. First, we had to get Skitarii codex. Then Cult Mechanicus codex. That's 2 books. Oh, and the White Dwarf issue (for the sake of completeness, it was issue 69, released on May 23rd, 2015) for the Adeptus Mechanicus War Convocation. Wait, that's not all...if you want to field your Knight, you need the Imperial Knight codex too! So you're carrying around three codexes and a White Dwarf magazine just to play a single army. And now you're asking us to maybe swap that White Dwarf magazine for a fourth book in the form of Fall of Cadia? So in addition to the bulky army case, we had to find space for four books and potentially a magazine. Yikes.

Another thing. Considering that the rules are all over the place, you have to flip around. Knight datasheets are in the Imperial Knight codex, along with the Baronial Court rules, the Warlord Traits and other upgrades (I believe the Warlord goes up to BS5 and WS5, plus have a 3++ invulnerable save). Then you need to refer back to Fall of Cadia for the overall super Formation benefit, which is It Will Not Die for vehicles. Or Master-crafted. Or something. So you'll be flipping back and forth around the codexes, trying to search the relevant rules and datasheets. Yeah, as fun as theorycrafting was, doing all that book keeping in the middle of a game was not...practical or enjoyable. Not to mention the look on your opponent's face as he impatiently waits for you to look up your needlessly complex rules.

Thankfully, Games Workshop realized this was a bad idea, and...said screw it, virus bombing 7th Edition and Formations to oblivion and resetting everything. 8th edition was much better (at least until the mess that was Psychic Awakening, but I think even Psychic Awakening was better than the catastrophe that was Formations). Like I said, the 8th edition Adeptus Mechanicus codex wisely combined Skitarii, Cult Mechanicus and even the Oathsworn/Questor Mechanicus (Mechanicus Knights in low Gothic) into a single book, which clearly illustrates that that was the intention all along. The Knights were taken out of the 9th edition codex, but they already had their own Imperial Knight codex, which was further expanded upon with the addition of Armigers and the Dominus chassis, so you could argue that they didn't really need them anyway. But 9th edition did accommodate for Knights via the Knight of the Cog, which was cool. But back to 7th edition - at the end, the rules team was trying to put Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus back together as a single army either through Formations or even fluffy Detachments like the Grand Convocation, but that only contributed to making 7th edition even more of a convoluted mess. With the destruction of Cadia and Roboute Guilliman's resurrection, however, 7th edition came to a close, along with all the ridiculous Formations and bloated rules and dozens of books needed to play your armies. And thus ends a page of Games Workshop and Warhammer 40,000 history.

Still, despite the clear flaws and problems, it's fun to look back at history and all the cool stuff. There's definitely potential there, especially in seeing an army as thematic as the Adeptus Mechanicus War Convocation. Just as long as you don't min-max them. Giving benefits to encourage people to run thematic armies was a good start, but when everything started becoming free and...uh, excessive, that's when it got way out of hand.

I don't know if anyone is going to enjoy reading this series, but if you guys like more of this retrospectives or blasts from the past, I might write more. Maybe I'll pick Wrath of Magnus and look into the Thousand Sons Cabal Formation thing next, but only if you guys want to read about it. Till then!

Ever wondered why Codex: Skitarii and Codex: Cult Mechanicus were split in 7th Edition?

Ah, this takes me back. I wrote a stupid post about this back then, but it was more of a rant about how I hated Cult Mechanicus than an actual proper article. Oh, well. Anyway, old timers might remember how the Adeptus Mechanicus faction was split into two codexes (codices?) in 2015. I dunno if I can be considered an old timer - strangely enough, I'm older than many of the youngsters who have just newly come into what is an increasingly expensive hobby, but there are way more experienced veterans than me who have played 3rd, 4th and 5th editions, while I only started at the late tail end of 6th or maybe early 7th edition?

Hell, I think this blog started just a couple of months before the release of Codex: Skitarii, and I ended up jumping on the bandwagon. Not because I'm a fan of all things new or a slave to the new hotness or a meta-chaser or whatever, but I had always been a fan of the Adeptus Mechanicus, thanks to the Ciaphas Cain novels. You know, back when Skitarii were known as Tech Guard (the Forge Worlds' version of the Imperial Guard), and were nothing more than cyborg Guardsmen wielding hellguns. You could essentially represent them as kitbashed cyborg Guardsmen with storm troopers rules. And there was this old fluff where the Skitarii of the forge world Ryza possessed armored columns of Leman Russ Executioner tanks. Really awesome stuff. Oh, not to mention Graham McNeill's Mechanicum, which really cemented my love for Imperial Knights, his Priest of Mars trilogy (now known as Forge of Mars, time really flies), and Ben Counter's Dark Adeptus.

Oh? Are you lost? Sorry. But I think this is kind of important because it illustrates just how in flux the fluff and lore of Warhammer 40,000 armies are. Before we had a codex, Games Workshop - a company that focuses on miniatures - basically left it up to individual Black Library authors to imagine the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Skitarii however they wanted. There was a consensus, though. A common thread. Most of the Black Library novels that mention Skitarii before the advent of their codex always represented them as cyborg guardsmen with hellguns. You do have variety - Dan Abnett's Titanicus had berserk Skitarii warriors with access to chems and drugs, as well as some wild uniform that made them look barbaric. Graham McNeill's Skitarii in the Ultramarines omnibus also mentioned the same chems, paired with augmetics, mechanical limbs and even close-up melee weapons. In Graham's Priest of Mars series, you had this awesome Skitarii Secutor who commanded the Skitarii legions, and they were riding in modified Rhinos and had access to commonly recognized Guard tanks like Leman Russ and Chimeras. Sandy Mitchell and Ben Counter, though, had Skitarii being guardsmen with cybernetics and hellguns.

Then came this in early 2015 (I believe announced in March, and just a couple of months after I started this blog in December 2014).

Suddenly, we had a bunch of new lore based on the new miniatures designed and invented by Games Workshop. Radium carbines? Huh? Radioactive infantry? Hellguns were replaced by galvanic rifles. To be fair, a lot of the designs, particularly the Skitarii Rangers' hoods and rebreathers and goggles, were inspired by already existing artwork, such as the cover for Mechanicum, written by Graham a few years prior.

Yeah, you can see the similiarities and inspirations. The Skitarii finally had an army and model range of their own, having been mentioned in the lore for decades, but not having a representative on the tabletop. That all changed, and I was eager to collect an army of my own. Yikes, I can still see the early 2015 articles in my blog as I assembled and painted them. They looked horrible back then, I never bothered with the Martian red, and instead did some boring combination black and gold to match my Knights. That...didn't work out.

Anyway, shortly after Codex: Skitarii, we had this:

What the hell? Yeah...I was just as confused as everyone back then. I was happy with Skitarii. Why did we need another codex? Well, back then, I didn't really care too much. I was more than eager to run the Adeptus Mechanicus War Convocation in White Dwarf, which allowed me to run both my Skitarii and Knight together, and I like robots, so I was happy to collect a bunch of Kastelan robots.

I was new to the hobby back then, so despite what everyone claimed about the Adeptus Mechanicus War Convocation being cheesy and overpowered, I could never win a game with them. That's not important. The real question is...why the hell did they separate the codexes/codices? Couldn't they have just combined them into Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus, like they did in 8th, 9th and now 10th edition? Hindsight is 20/20. There was no way I would have anticipated them combining both codexes in future editions back then. Hell, I didn't even know there was a new edition on the horizon, about 2 years after the release of this codex. Even back then, I remember writing about how I didn't think Codex: Cult Mechanicus was necessary. I didn't like the models in there, I hated the Electro-priests, I wasn't fond of the Kataphron aesthetic, and I thought the Kastelan robots were inferior to the Forge World range of Castellax battle-automata and Thanatar siege-automata. I loved the Skitarii codex, but I couldn't say the same for Cult Mechanicus.

But...apparently, there was a reason why they separated the two. The answer lies in Goonhammer's interview with James Hewitt, who used to work for the rules team in Warhammer 40,000 before joining the team for specialist games.

The cynic might claim that Games Workshop separated Skitarii from Cult Mechanicus to sell two different books, and therefore make more money. That it was a profit orientated decision. That didn't really make sense because it was unlikely that they would make more money from selling two separate codexes for a single army. Firstly, books didn't have a high profit margin - Games Workshop relied more on selling miniatures for profit than books and codexes. Secondly, your expenses will increase because you'll have to pay double for binding, color printing, and other overheads, only to sell them slightly cheaper.

Nope. It's nothing as insidious as greedy, money-grubbing capitalists. Instead, the answer turns out to be strangely mundane and...silly.

James: The Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus [back in 7th] which should have one combined set of rules, they got two sets of special rules, because otherwise you don’t sell two books of special rules, you sell one.

Lupe: And interestingly they got combined back together in 8th.

James: And they should have been, they always should have been. The reason they were split was because of a logistics thing. It was when White Dwarf was weekly and they could only show one week’s releases at a time, and if you put out an army book in week one then you’ll show off the releases for the next one, and “secrecy is paramount” , you can’t show off the future releases. If you put it out in week two, it looks like the releases in week one were coming out without an army book, and that doesn’t make sense. And it was this whole ridiculous… the tail has often wagged the dog in Games Workshop in different ways, and this was a fantastic example of that.

Lupe: OK, sorry, can I just clarify: the reason that in 7th edition they were two separate armies was publishing requirements of White Dwarf?

James: There you go. It was like the Skitarii didn’t have any characters. I had to write that codex. There were no HQ choices, so how do we do it? We had to make up a new detachment for them. Similarly things like the Skitarii didn’t have any transport options.

Lupe: So you worked on 40k as well?

James: Oh sorry yeah, I did, did I not say that?

Lupe:  [Laughs] No you didn’t mention that at all.

James: The rules team worked on everything, 40k was just ubiquitous. It was always just there in the background. It was probably the least exciting part to me – churning out codexes that are 80% the same as the previous edition of the codex, with a few new bits. The Skitarii book was a rare exception, a chance to do a whole new army from scratch. But yeah, the transports thing. We’d had to come up with this whole thing because they didn’t have any transports. And this comes back to the thing I was saying earlier and how it goes miniatures, then background and then rules. The miniatures stuff is so closed off, we didn’t get to know what was happening in the future. So when the background was written for them, the background stuff was emphasising how they’d walk everywhere. And we wrote rules around the idea of them not having transports. So when I saw the transports come out a couple of years later I went “Oh come on!”, that’s just rewritten a huge chunk of stuff. But hey.

Lupe: Wow that is just bizarre.

Yeah. The reason that they separated Skitarii from Cult Mechanicus as two separate codexes seems to be logistics...to adhere to the publishing requirements of the then weekly White Dwarf. And the bit about the transports - which we later know thanks to hindsight that they are Archaeopter Transvector and Skorpius Dunerider - brings me back to my original point about the lore and fluff being in flux. In the beginning, before Codex: Skitarii and later Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus were a thing, the authors had to come up with their own idea of what Skitarii do and have.

So we had hellguns, modified Rhinos, Leman Russ Executioner tanks, servo-arms, chems and drugs, and basically cyborg Guardsmen that could be easily represented by Storm troopers with a bit of kitbashing.

Then the codex came out, and all of that became invalid. No longer was previous fluff accurate. Nope, the Skitarii had to be depicted according to the codex and miniatures released by Games Workshop. Hell, not even the codex, just the miniatures. No more hellguns, say hello to radium carbines and galvanic rifles. Rhinos? Nope! We march on foot now! Leman Russ Executioner tanks? Who needs them, we have Onager Dunecrawlers! They admittedly look cooler. Oh, wait! Remember all those cool robots from the 1980s and 1990s that used to fight alongside Space Marines, had their own complicated programming ruleset, and maybe even Epic models (I might be wrong here)? They make a comeback in Kastelan robots (and the Forge World's then new Horus Heresy series). The fluff/lore had to be updated too, and Rob Sanders wrote two awesome novels about the new Adeptus Mechanicus, which rewrote all previous iterations of Skitarii and battle-servitors, and featured all the new models in their full glory as they fight against the Iron Warriors. Skitarii Alpha-Primus Haldron-44 Stroika as his Skitarii forces are first decimated by Iron warriors on a fallen forge world where the Mechanicus tests out a new gellar bomb constructed by a recently discovered Standard Template Construct, and then Magos Explorator Omnid Torquora as he picks up the fight and struggles to outwit the superior Traitor Legion with his dwindling Skitarii forces and Titan support.

No, seriously. Rob Sanders's novels about the Adeptus Mechanicus are amazing. I know some people complain about them being...uh, product placements to promote the new Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus models, but it's an amazing story in its own right, and there are a few twists and turns that make reading both novels engaging to the very end. The ending is also awesome and a great f you to the Iron Warriors (you can tell that my son of Dorn bias is showing). Both books have been collected as the Adeptus Mechanicus omnibus. Anyway, as I said, the Skitarii lore, wargear, weapons and equipment have been rewritten. Gone are the hellguns. Now we have arc mauls, arc pistols, radium carbines, galvanic rifles and plasma calivers. Oh, man. The plasma calivers, especially. And then the Kataphron Destroyer makes an appearance. The Elecro-priests feel kind of forced and shoeshorned into the narrative, admittedly, but the rest of the two books are great.

It's not just Rob Sanders's two books. In the latest Ciaphas Cain novel, Vainglorious, Kastelan robots make an appearance in the forge world he's visiting. In The Warmaster and The Anarch by Dan Abnett, upon the forge world of Urdesh, the Skitarii now wield galvanic rifles instead of hellguns. Gav Thorpe's Imperator: Wrath of the Omnissiah, also features modern Skitarii and even a Kastelan Robot that is supposed to defend the Imperator Titan from boarding Traitor Marines. I also need to mention the Horus Heresy and Siege of Terra novels that were published after the codexes' releases. Aaron Dembski-Bowden writes about Skitarii using radium carbines in Echoes of Eternity, not to mention more codex-like Skitarii in The Master of Mankind when they fight alongside the Legio Custodes and the Emperor in the War in the Webway. Hell, a Sicarian assassin even shows up in The Master of Mankind. And we have that in Rob Sanders's Cybernetica as well, with Skitarii Rangers wielding galvanic rifles rappeling out of a freaking Valkyrie. Yeah, an Imperial Guard Valkyrie. Again, this was back in 2015, before the release of the Archaeopter kit, so it'll probably be retconned now. Oh, and I almost forgot Guy Haley's Wolfsbane, though I believe that featured more Forge World models such as the Myrmidon, Thallaxi, Cybernetica automata and Tech-priests of the Mechanicum as opposed to the orthodox Skitarii that we see in the 41st Millennium.

In fact, I've seen arguments from older Mechanicus fans that the Thallax is closer to what they imagine the Skitarii line infantry would be, as opposed to the Vanguard and Rangers. Tougher cyborg warriors, more nightmarish, and more of the Gothic and grimdark aesthetic. I don't blame them for that, though I sometimes wonder if they are more caught up in the heydays of Forge World's Horus Heresy's new beginnings. I mean, when I think of Skitarii, I imagine the kind of robed cyborg infantry as depicted in the cover of Graham's Mechanicum as opposed to the Thallax.

Interestingly enough, I haven't actually seen Graham McNeill write any new Mechanicum/Mechanicus or Skitarii stories after the codex, though he has been often called upon to pen Thousand Sons stories set during the Horus Heresy, such as The Crimson King and The Fury of Magnus. I wonder what his take on the now official codex Skitarii and Mechanicus would be.

Even the codex is not immune to retcons and changes (which is kind of ironic, given that codex is kind of a meta-reference to Roboute Guilliman's codex, which most Space Marine Chapters adhere rigidly to). About 5 years later, new models and miniatures are released. Did James mention how the Skitarii march on foot because they don't have transports? Well, now they have Skorpius Duneriders and Archaeopter Transvectors to ferry them around!

Psychic Awakening: Engine War essentially expanded the range for Adeptus Mechanicus in May 2020 - or to be precise, the range for Skitarii, because we didn't really have much for Cult Mechanicus. I won't go over the lore here - that's for another article - but we basically had 9 new units for Skitarii, including the Serberys Raiders and Serberys Sulfurhounds (the Serberys Corps), the Pteraxii Sterilyzors and Pteraxii Skystalkers, the Skorpius Dunerider and Skorpius Disintegrator, and the Archaeopter that had three variants: Transvector, Fulisave and Stratoraptor. Am I forgetting anyone else?

The Tech-priest Manipulus, who first appeared for Kill Team, was finally incorporated into the Adeptus Mechanicus codex for 9th edition in May 2021, along with the newly released Skitarii Marshal who was the Mechanicus's new Character model for that edition. The Technoarcheologist, who was originally Daedalosus of Blackstone Fortress (the board game) fame, also received rules in the 9th edition codex, and these two Tech-priests were retroactively added to the Adeptus Mechanicus range to double the HQ choices for Cult Mechanicus (with the Skitarii Marshal giving us a total of 5 HQ choices, up from 2 in the 8th edition codex). But you'll notice that aside from the Character/HQ models, the new models are all Skitarii. Even the Skitarii Marshal, and the Sydonian Skatros - added in the 10th edition codex in November 2023, are Skitarii. Except the Tech-priests (which were released for separate game systems), there are no new Cult Mechanicus models since their first release back in 2015.

Unfortunately, this division kind of remains in the new, upcoming codex. Skitarii have the Skitarii keyword, and the Cult Mechanicus, with the exception of Kastelan Robots (who have the Legio Cybernetica keyword - and I do hope we'll be getting new Cybernetica or robot models in the future, c'mon, Games Workshop!), have their own keyword...and the army rule only benefits Skitarii units. So unless you take the Data Psalm Conclave, you probably wouldn't be getting much out of your Electro Priests. Thankfully, the Kataphron Servitors have access to Doctrina Imperatives like the Skitarii, so it's just the Electo-priests and Kastelan Robots (unless you run Cohort Cybernetica) who don't. Also, if you're astute enough to attach your Tech-priests (not Electro) to Skitarii squads or even Kataphron units, they also get Doctrina Imperatives. A holdover from when they are separate in 7th edition? At least they ensured that Tech-priests and Kataphrons have access to Doctrina Imperatives (and these are kind of pointless for the Kastelan robots, anyway).

Well, enough of this blast from the past. I just thought it would be interesting to revisit a trip down memory lane and indulge in nostalgia. Has it really been over 8 years now? Wow. Maybe 9, since I started this blog around December 2014. I can't believe I've been doing this hobby for this long. Even more surprising that my blog has persisted for almost 10 years too. I've seen many blogs come and go. Hopefully, Gary Natfka is all right, though his Faeit212 blog hasn't been updated for six months now. Maybe he's caught up in real life. Not to mention CadiasCreed blog, but I think he sort of gave up on the hobby when 8th edition hit. Hopefully, this blog will remain updating even after another 10 years, and I'll once again write about how much the Adeptus Mechanicus has changed over two decades.

Till then!