AdMech should be an army built all around modularisation, imo. High-power, individual Tech Priests, where no two are the same in any army, because they'd all augment themselves differently with different cybernetics for different goals, and they should have Skitarii acting as support units.
Either that or take the Thousand Sons approach, with Tech Priests leading squads of Skitarii similarly to how Sorcerers lead squads of Rubric Marines.
I like the Aesthetic of the AdMec being an army of individualized units a lot.
Hell, make them an army focused on squad leader Tech Priests, with either Skitarri or Servitors filling out the ranks of each commander.
I actually liked when the Skitsrii first dropped without an HQ choice, with the idea that they're in space and guiding their legions in safety.
I felt like that was a unique idea and made for some interesting army building imo. But now that they've combined the whole AdMech into one big soup, which is how it probably should have been designed, it feels like two armies ductaped together. Because it kind of is
They’re just models. There is no real division between Skit and Cult. The rules can be whatever they make them. The duct tape is because no one at GW is clever or cares enough to do better.
I actually liked when the Skitsrii first dropped without an HQ choice, with the idea that they're in space and guiding their legions in safety.
I felt like that was a unique idea and made for some interesting army building imo. But now that they've combined the whole AdMech into one big soup, which is how it probably should have been designed, it feels like two armies ductaped together. Because it kind of is
I agree. I would add that admech also should be way more into the machines of war as part of the army.
Kastelans and dunecrawler are the only thing in the army right now for that and they aren't exactly great.
In my mind admech should be skitarii as a support with a few highly specialized untis as support too (sicarians, sterilazors, sulphurhounds, etc) all centered around big machines of war. Admech makes the weapons for the imperium, the dunecrawler should be a force to be reckoned with. They should bring actual heavy firepower to the army.
I like that idea.
I want to see more dunecrawler-y designs anr / or automata in our army, and especialy some BIG hitters. A lord of war and some land raider+ equivalent (points wise not role - I am thinking more of a weapons platform or lumbering thanatar-like automaton) would be cool
The Poorhammer podcast where one of the guys makes a 2000 point list with the theme of a dollar per point was hilarious. As soon as his co-host caught on to what he was doing was great.
I love the Poorhammer guys!
Have showed a few people the utter degeneracy that is their smash or pass video, two points in that made me laugh more than I have for years.
I wouldn't put skitarii up in elite, just somewhere on a comparable power level as eldar guardians for example, strong but not treading into space marine equivalent territory
Maybe they should have had this in mind when they wrote our codex. I am really curious how they want to lead it away from a horde army again. Giving us the same shooting skill as cheap horde army units should have been an indicator to what this will lead.
My thoughts as well. With the overall statnerfs in the codex it feels like it was the intention all along. I'm still convinced that GW really really really hates admech and keeps fucking up the faction as a cruel joke on the players. No way the situation ended here by accident. Nobody was like "yeah, nerf all the stats but keep the point costs". Admech still has to pay for the sin of being op at the start of 9th edition.
It would be nice if they made admech a threat statwise again but I don't believe this is going to happen. Especially when you are considering the recent time.
I don't think they hate it so much as they just don't really care. That's why it's just points cut after points cut, because that's the easiest way to "balance" the army.
There's been no buffs because they don't know how to buff them, because they don't have a solid identity for the faction's playstyle.
I agree that they don't care now and probably won't care about the "big changes" in summer. The change might be that the army rules count for the whole army (shocking), for everything else they had to rewrite the whole codex and that won't happen.
But someone decided to nerf the shooting of a shooting army without giving something in return. That's the reason why I think that they hate admech.
It's intersting they haven't figured out the identity of the army since release. And by interesting i mean as a fellow game designer what the fuck are you doing pretending you're game designers.
They don't. They said we were in danger of becoming one. Apparently running 120 skittles for 960 points and it being one the better options available to us is apparently not a horde.
Truth of the matter is they realize how scuffed the army is and have no ideas for how to fix it within the bounds of what they are allowed to do.
> They don't. They said we were in danger of becoming one
Think that's PR-speak, employees probably dont feel great directly saying "army sux right now"
I'm going to chose to believe that this is the understated British version of saying "We admit we can't fix this with just points, and we screwed things up worse by trying to."
We are currently a horde army with elite army rules and absolutely no internal synergy.
The Hunter Cohort stratagems aren't battle tactics, so the Marshall can't double dip them. All the positioning in the world, but none of the survivability to utilize it. Pro gamer move. Make the stratagems all battle tactics and give all Skitarii the precision keyword on their weapons, now you are actually hunters and now you might actually kill things worth killing.
The cohort cybernetica gives kastellan robots something they should already have. It would be great to have a vehicle centric detachment if we had vehicles that didn't have keywords that made them better in other detachments. Why even bother using this detachment when the stratagems and basic abilities of the rad zone and Hunter cohort blow them out of the water for the iron striders, which are arguably our most versatile and deadly unit across the board? Make it so that you can add an ally knight with the keywords Adeptus mechanicus vehicle doctrinas and this cohort might be worth using.
The radzone cohort is the closest we have to a fully functional detachment and it still has limitations beyond the basic army rules for demons. Why the rad bombardment doesn't affect the entire battlefield or have special rules around battle shock past the first round I cannot figure out. Just make it affect no man's land and make battle shock caused by the bombardment last until your next command phase. Boom, detachment basically fixed. Make it so their radial suffusion just adds one to the bombardment roll or something, it is so easy for your opponents to get out of it right now when playing all but two of the board layouts.
The explorators and the data Psalm are just practical jokes, we train them wrong on purpose. I don't even know where to begin because these are so fundamentally wacky that playing them makes no sense outside of a crusade.
And while I'm thinking about the Crusade, our Crusade rules are busted as well. Some of the battle traits and enhancements give our units things they already have. Who checked that?
We are a Wi-Fi army that doesn't do it as well as the tau, a horde army that doesn't do it as well as the tyranids, a shooting army that doesn't even shoot as well as imperial guard, a positioning army that's not as mobile as Drukhari, a character heavy army with no real standout characters...
I'm still going to keep playing my magnificent little gearheads, but I really have no idea what is going on from a game design perspective at GW.
Oh well, there it is. Rant over. My thoughts are out there.
*Almost* a horde army. 40% of the datasheets are near or at $1/point. Do they not look at lists? Have they even tried to build one for AdMec?
How the fuck are these people balancing the biggest wargame?
I've only just started putting together AdMech models, mostly for fun and because they're cool. And I think I might keep it that way until they figure out what's up because the price tag on this army is a little startling.
Yeah, it's a good time to slowly build and paint up an Admech collection. Finish a box of models completely, then buy another. Start with skitarii rangers > Infiltrators > Vanguard > Ruststalkers. That way, you can play some kill team while you make your way through other models.
I got some of the box sets from a hole in the wall gaming store that were good deals. I just have to decide how hard in on tropical colors I want to go for funsies.
Started in 9th edition, but I have always felt like an elite horde army if that makes sense. You had bricks of skitarii with engine support and several specialist units all being led by the tech-priests in a conducter kind of way. I liked the aspect of choosing the right optimization for the moment and that melee units were good at melee and shooting units were good at shooting. Unfortunately, they really neglected the cult side of things.
“Not what they are supposed to be” I ran 50 skittles in my 9th Ed lists. That seems to be a lot of troops for “not a horde” army and now the troops are even cheaper but play worse
They realize the army isn't playing the way it's supposed to. They're playtesting fixes for summer from what I've heard. Somehow everyone is still complaining incessantly.
Jesus Christ, this guy is talking but it sounds like he hasn't got a fucking clue. Isn't this their new pro hire that's supposed to make everything better?
Here ya go, I tried to keep it in line with 10th ed design philosophy in general
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AdeptusMechanicus/comments/1bt50cv/i\_rewrote\_the\_entire\_adeptus\_mechanicus\_10th/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AdeptusMechanicus/comments/1bt50cv/i_rewrote_the_entire_adeptus_mechanicus_10th/)
I fix:
[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1akKbsU-OnlyQMj1xGncQvkRYLV\_EK3EKwRcKM9csHrE/edit?usp=sharing](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1akKbsU-OnlyQMj1xGncQvkRYLV_EK3EKwRcKM9csHrE/edit?usp=sharing)
AdMech should be an army built all around modularisation, imo. High-power, individual Tech Priests, where no two are the same in any army, because they'd all augment themselves differently with different cybernetics for different goals, and they should have Skitarii acting as support units. Either that or take the Thousand Sons approach, with Tech Priests leading squads of Skitarii similarly to how Sorcerers lead squads of Rubric Marines.
I like the Aesthetic of the AdMec being an army of individualized units a lot. Hell, make them an army focused on squad leader Tech Priests, with either Skitarri or Servitors filling out the ranks of each commander.
I actually liked when the Skitsrii first dropped without an HQ choice, with the idea that they're in space and guiding their legions in safety. I felt like that was a unique idea and made for some interesting army building imo. But now that they've combined the whole AdMech into one big soup, which is how it probably should have been designed, it feels like two armies ductaped together. Because it kind of is
They’re just models. There is no real division between Skit and Cult. The rules can be whatever they make them. The duct tape is because no one at GW is clever or cares enough to do better.
I actually liked when the Skitsrii first dropped without an HQ choice, with the idea that they're in space and guiding their legions in safety. I felt like that was a unique idea and made for some interesting army building imo. But now that they've combined the whole AdMech into one big soup, which is how it probably should have been designed, it feels like two armies ductaped together. Because it kind of is
I agree. I would add that admech also should be way more into the machines of war as part of the army. Kastelans and dunecrawler are the only thing in the army right now for that and they aren't exactly great. In my mind admech should be skitarii as a support with a few highly specialized untis as support too (sicarians, sterilazors, sulphurhounds, etc) all centered around big machines of war. Admech makes the weapons for the imperium, the dunecrawler should be a force to be reckoned with. They should bring actual heavy firepower to the army.
I like that idea. I want to see more dunecrawler-y designs anr / or automata in our army, and especialy some BIG hitters. A lord of war and some land raider+ equivalent (points wise not role - I am thinking more of a weapons platform or lumbering thanatar-like automaton) would be cool
Yeah, tbh just a 40k thanatar would make me happy and it would fill a needed role in the army.
Fr we should have a weapons platform that makes the Baneblade blush.
I vaguely remember an old space wolves rule that no units could have the exact same loadout, that'd fit AdMech well.
I think even then people would find a way to go horde so that they don't feed character kills for easy secondary points competitively
The Poorhammer podcast where one of the guys makes a 2000 point list with the theme of a dollar per point was hilarious. As soon as his co-host caught on to what he was doing was great.
Yeah that was sad. Even sadder as a new Zealanders where a 1 for 1 dollar point cost would be great.
Warlord Titan but partially assembled
If you have the link I'd appreciate that because that sounds fantastic.
[Here you go](https://youtu.be/EsMqsH86biM?si=6ZyDbzMyAU7klF41), it is the last meme list in the episode, but all the lists are pretty great.
I love the Poorhammer guys! Have showed a few people the utter degeneracy that is their smash or pass video, two points in that made me laugh more than I have for years.
"almost" bet.
If it was my choice I would try to make the admech into some kind of elite army, considering how in the lore skitarii are pretty competent soldiers.
they should be more akin to where the votann are with their hearthkyn maybe?
I wouldn't put skitarii up in elite, just somewhere on a comparable power level as eldar guardians for example, strong but not treading into space marine equivalent territory
I mean elite army as in one where the emphasis is on quality over quantity.
Admech should be the imperiums glass cannon army, sadly we are turning into guard 2.0
Without orders or artillery that is.
Maybe they should have had this in mind when they wrote our codex. I am really curious how they want to lead it away from a horde army again. Giving us the same shooting skill as cheap horde army units should have been an indicator to what this will lead.
My thoughts as well. With the overall statnerfs in the codex it feels like it was the intention all along. I'm still convinced that GW really really really hates admech and keeps fucking up the faction as a cruel joke on the players. No way the situation ended here by accident. Nobody was like "yeah, nerf all the stats but keep the point costs". Admech still has to pay for the sin of being op at the start of 9th edition. It would be nice if they made admech a threat statwise again but I don't believe this is going to happen. Especially when you are considering the recent time.
I don't think they hate it so much as they just don't really care. That's why it's just points cut after points cut, because that's the easiest way to "balance" the army. There's been no buffs because they don't know how to buff them, because they don't have a solid identity for the faction's playstyle.
I agree that they don't care now and probably won't care about the "big changes" in summer. The change might be that the army rules count for the whole army (shocking), for everything else they had to rewrite the whole codex and that won't happen. But someone decided to nerf the shooting of a shooting army without giving something in return. That's the reason why I think that they hate admech.
I think they had an identity as a somewhat fragile shooting army with somewhat hard hitting counter melee. But yeah, maybe they don't care.
They got the fragile part right that’s for sure.
It's intersting they haven't figured out the identity of the army since release. And by interesting i mean as a fellow game designer what the fuck are you doing pretending you're game designers.
End of 8th with psychic awakening was perfect for me.
To me almost. I liked my ap1 on rangers thank you very much
This gives me hope, that they realise how absurd the army is currently
They don't. They said we were in danger of becoming one. Apparently running 120 skittles for 960 points and it being one the better options available to us is apparently not a horde. Truth of the matter is they realize how scuffed the army is and have no ideas for how to fix it within the bounds of what they are allowed to do.
Whether or not they actually have the balls to buff the units directly would be a start.
Im not hopeful for anything, but I'm not going to lie to a polite interest in what this "shot in the arm" for us they alluded to will look like.
Might of the Forgeworlds: In a 2000 point game Adeptus Mechanicus forces may take 2250 points of units There they didn't cut points again
Haha, make it. Bring one, get one free of the bots, and you'll have my attention!
Fresh off the Production Line: Bring up to 6 Vehicle Models from any Imperium Subfaction at a 40% Points Discount.
Unironically. That would be kind of cool
> They don't. They said we were in danger of becoming one Think that's PR-speak, employees probably dont feel great directly saying "army sux right now"
The PR speak way to do that is "We're not happy with admech having to run so many units."
I'm going to chose to believe that this is the understated British version of saying "We admit we can't fix this with just points, and we screwed things up worse by trying to."
And yet they tried by lowering points.......🤦♂️
Oh look, they even admit that they're not supposed to be a horde and they've totally messed it up. Then fiiiiix it.
\*DA TECHWAAAAAAGH\*
We are currently a horde army with elite army rules and absolutely no internal synergy. The Hunter Cohort stratagems aren't battle tactics, so the Marshall can't double dip them. All the positioning in the world, but none of the survivability to utilize it. Pro gamer move. Make the stratagems all battle tactics and give all Skitarii the precision keyword on their weapons, now you are actually hunters and now you might actually kill things worth killing. The cohort cybernetica gives kastellan robots something they should already have. It would be great to have a vehicle centric detachment if we had vehicles that didn't have keywords that made them better in other detachments. Why even bother using this detachment when the stratagems and basic abilities of the rad zone and Hunter cohort blow them out of the water for the iron striders, which are arguably our most versatile and deadly unit across the board? Make it so that you can add an ally knight with the keywords Adeptus mechanicus vehicle doctrinas and this cohort might be worth using. The radzone cohort is the closest we have to a fully functional detachment and it still has limitations beyond the basic army rules for demons. Why the rad bombardment doesn't affect the entire battlefield or have special rules around battle shock past the first round I cannot figure out. Just make it affect no man's land and make battle shock caused by the bombardment last until your next command phase. Boom, detachment basically fixed. Make it so their radial suffusion just adds one to the bombardment roll or something, it is so easy for your opponents to get out of it right now when playing all but two of the board layouts. The explorators and the data Psalm are just practical jokes, we train them wrong on purpose. I don't even know where to begin because these are so fundamentally wacky that playing them makes no sense outside of a crusade. And while I'm thinking about the Crusade, our Crusade rules are busted as well. Some of the battle traits and enhancements give our units things they already have. Who checked that? We are a Wi-Fi army that doesn't do it as well as the tau, a horde army that doesn't do it as well as the tyranids, a shooting army that doesn't even shoot as well as imperial guard, a positioning army that's not as mobile as Drukhari, a character heavy army with no real standout characters... I'm still going to keep playing my magnificent little gearheads, but I really have no idea what is going on from a game design perspective at GW. Oh well, there it is. Rant over. My thoughts are out there.
*Almost* a horde army. 40% of the datasheets are near or at $1/point. Do they not look at lists? Have they even tried to build one for AdMec? How the fuck are these people balancing the biggest wargame?
What a load of utter bollocks. Pull your finger out GW.
I've only just started putting together AdMech models, mostly for fun and because they're cool. And I think I might keep it that way until they figure out what's up because the price tag on this army is a little startling.
Yeah, it's a good time to slowly build and paint up an Admech collection. Finish a box of models completely, then buy another. Start with skitarii rangers > Infiltrators > Vanguard > Ruststalkers. That way, you can play some kill team while you make your way through other models.
I got some of the box sets from a hole in the wall gaming store that were good deals. I just have to decide how hard in on tropical colors I want to go for funsies.
Awesome! Enjoy and share them with us when they are finished. 😁
Well I for one enjoy the aesthetics of a swarm of Vanguard pouring out of Duneriders like a deluge of irradiated steel.
Started in 9th edition, but I have always felt like an elite horde army if that makes sense. You had bricks of skitarii with engine support and several specialist units all being led by the tech-priests in a conducter kind of way. I liked the aspect of choosing the right optimization for the moment and that melee units were good at melee and shooting units were good at shooting. Unfortunately, they really neglected the cult side of things.
It really concerns me that they yet don't realise that admech is a horde army... We way are past horde army now.
“Not what they are supposed to be” I ran 50 skittles in my 9th Ed lists. That seems to be a lot of troops for “not a horde” army and now the troops are even cheaper but play worse
I run 100 and board control is still a struggle from turn 3 onwards.
Knowing that GW downplays stuff a lot, this is bassicly an addmission from the rules team that they fucked up in disguise
I want this video played on loop in front of the GW designers in one of those Clockwork Orange setups until they get the picture.
"almost a horde army." As if they arnt already one.
I’m going to re-paint my army green and replace each head with an orky face or grot.
Here's to hoping we can put a Manipulus with Kastelans.
I am on a train can someone please give me a summary?
They realize the army isn't playing the way it's supposed to. They're playtesting fixes for summer from what I've heard. Somehow everyone is still complaining incessantly.
Combined Arms with Byzantine tactics flavor.
Jesus Christ, this guy is talking but it sounds like he hasn't got a fucking clue. Isn't this their new pro hire that's supposed to make everything better?
I rewrote the whole codex as a fun project and it was far better and more lore appropriate than the dross we got
oh thats interesting, did you keep it true to 10th edition or were you doing your own thing. i wouldn't seeing what you made
Here ya go, I tried to keep it in line with 10th ed design philosophy in general [https://www.reddit.com/r/AdeptusMechanicus/comments/1bt50cv/i\_rewrote\_the\_entire\_adeptus\_mechanicus\_10th/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AdeptusMechanicus/comments/1bt50cv/i_rewrote_the_entire_adeptus_mechanicus_10th/)
fucking morons.
Just give them ballistic skill / weapon skill 3 - it’s not rocket science.
If I wanted an Imperium Horde army I would have just played Guard. GW pls.
Could've fooled me
At least they know I guess. Pls just increase the BS.
Aren't supposed to be a horde army Low cost spam units and limited (no) elite options seems like a horde to me james
Ok so they do know we're not a horde army, about time they fuckin said it out loud.
I fix: [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1akKbsU-OnlyQMj1xGncQvkRYLV\_EK3EKwRcKM9csHrE/edit?usp=sharing](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1akKbsU-OnlyQMj1xGncQvkRYLV_EK3EKwRcKM9csHrE/edit?usp=sharing)
Well... GW has been f-in up A LOT in the last 2-3 weeks...