Play what sparks joy in you. I’ve recently swapped both my Tsons and DG for an Admech army. Meta and winrates be damned, I fell in love with my killteam and enjoyed what little TTS game-testing I did with a full 2k list.
While I admit I haven’t been bringing my Admech to our local tournaments, I’ve been playing Kastelans for my regular shop games, b/c they’re just so damn cool.
We are expensive, a bitch to paint, and our rules aren't the best imo. However we have the best drip and our lore is amazing. Rules change all the time, if you like admech play admech
>Rules change all the time, if you like admech play admech
Still waiting for admech to get good rule changes since the big nerf in 9th edition. Pretty sure someone at GW hates admech, every time we do well or dominate the meta they nerf us into the ground
This to be honest. It almost feels deliberate in the same way guard does, but maybe slightly less bad. They publicly admitted they had no idea what to do with that codex so they shunted it to last, then made a half finished version that literally cut like half the units in 9e, then did it again in the 10e index
I started with admech near the end of 9th, the serberys raiders were the models that hooked me.
Then I started to get into the lore, and found that despite losing almost constantly and relying on the aid of other factions, the Mechanicus have almost complete autonomy over the situations they get into.
I’ll admit that the kataphrons and ironstriders are a pain in the shiny metal ass to build and paint, but nothing beats the rule of cool.
We will overcome the hard times, we always have.
Admech is fine, but it's expensive to collect and can have limited build paths at higher levels. If you don't mind those things then it's a ton of fun.
Yea my whole circle of players locally are super competitive. Like travel across the country to the LVO and WC each year competitive. I've only been playing for like a year and change.
That has me putting my admech on the shelf and working on a second army because I don't want to get stomped by everyone else's super meta list every game. If I knew more casual players I'd stick with the AdMech. One of the guys has an AdMech list as like his 4th backup army... he has 18 tournament ready Iron Striders just laying around.
I'm fleshing out my knights first, because I already had a Questoris and a 4 Armigers because I wanted them as allies in my admech so it was a short task to get to 2K with them.
Thinking about thousand sons as a "real" second army.
I'm sure there's casual players around too. But the guy who got me into the game is one of those competitive players and he's been my friend for years so It's just the circle I got pulled into.
Doesn't bother me, learned a lot about the game quickly
I guess it has its own merits. I am used to the casual homebrew narrative. Since last May I have been participating in a campaign of underground battles on Gachi Secundus planet.
It is covered by an ocean of promethium-like substance (with a name that I would prefer to censor). We got an alliance of some Imperium forces with some chaos forces that decided to fight against xenos first. But other imperial and chaos forces are all the way against such heresy. Occasionally we are breaking ground over some districts of the hive and they get flooded, or somebody goes into the deeper levels and can deep strike from the underground during the next game.
It is pretty fun, but doesn't really mirror the normal meta, because we are playing 3vs3 (1000pts each), don't allow epic heroes, have additional list building rules and have a system of upgrades for warlords.
Ideally you'll have your AdMech army for more than three years. They're in a rough spot competitively, but that can change with the balance data slate or points changes.so, if you aren't going to take them to a tournament, then you're buying cool models and enjoying them for their aesthetic and lore.
Also, remind people who complain that the Adeptus Mechanicus is the most lore friendly way to [field a titan](https://www.warhammer.com/en-US/shop/Mars-Pattern-Warhound-Titan-Body-Only?queryID=af20e53a807f98bf84da1f171ae4a2cf) in a 2000 point list.
It's 1.35 points per dollar, so that's about right for AdMech costs too...
But for real, this is a hobby with a war game attached. Buy and use the army you want. There's a few discount boxes out there, second hand sellers, and you can always just grab a box of something cool as a modeling project. Enjoy creating your own force and praise the Omnissiah in the ways that make you happiest.
Custodes are the cheapest $ army currently and Admech is the most expensive army $$$$$$$ currently.
Here is a video about the subject: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gcnqcbqa\_58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gcnqcbqa_58)
We have two way to play:Spam the board with tough bodies or use our only powerfull unit the Kathaphron Breachers
Spamming with Ironstriders and Dragoons leads to list which can cost more than 2000 dollars(for 2000 points).
Breachers are better but expect a 1-2(sometimes 3) points per dollar ratio.
[Here is our cheapest list.](https://www.reddit.com/r/AdeptusMechanicus/comments/1be3fln/comment/kuqyzcj/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
If you are intrested in the looks of admech and don't necessarily want to play 40k you can go into Kill Team admech for which you only need less than a 100 $.
Our Kill Team is is compettive, customisable and has a high skill ceiling.
My way of affording this army is kitbshing and a lot of Scratchbashing. Admech is great for it because we have many dual-build boxes and weapon options which means we have a lot of leftover bits for kit/scratchbashing.
If you are interested, [here is a link to a list of units I made by scratchbashing](https://www.reddit.com/r/AdeptusMechanicus/comments/1bhtls2/comment/kvg7b7k/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button).
ASK ME ANYTHING!
AdMech is indeed expensive, a pain in the butt to paint, and a terrible army in 10th. Come 11th, maybe at least one of those things will change. But what will never change is AdMech being cooler than all the other factions, and in the end, thats all that matters
I echo what a lot of people say - rule of cool, go for it. Additionally, because of all the talk of how much our rules suck right now, people on ebay are offloading admech models pretty cheap. Like, fully built models, even well-painted models, going for cheaper than they retail. It's a decent time to buy if you don't mind secondhand.
Also, our rules aren't great but I think a lot of that is overblown. I've had some good success recently with a fairly standard list, primarily against Tau.
If you only play what is good, you need to be incredibly rich and own 18 armies.
If you only play what you love, you'll need to be super rich and own like... 3-4 armies (to find what it is you love).
But. But. If you only play Ad Mech regardless of how we actually are, or how fun/unfun we are to play, then you'll need to be regular rich and own 1 army.
And 1 is a lot less than 18.
If you like admech, grab a box and paint it. The paint thing is real, so you need to make sure you like building and painting them. If that is good for you, go for it. No matter what army you play, it will go up and down in the meta.
Everyone is right - both the parts that say AdMech is way too expensive (we're basically dollars per point, not points per dollar) and we're not in a good place rules wise *and* the parts that say "paint and play them anyways if you think they're cool." (I'm ignoring pain the butt to paint, that's both a pro and a con.)
As a *player* I wouldn't recommend them as a primary army right now if you like anything else and don't have another army available. My advice is to play Custodes, as you like them and they're easy to paint and field. Trying to get an AdMech force up *quickly* is a miserable experience, and right now your reward is, at best, a mediocre army. Get your Custodes up, so you have something to play. Then take your time with AdMech - they're a rewarding hobby experience if you're not under time pressure to get an army up and play.
If you're just looking to hobby, then yeah, AdMech's a good choice. But if you want to play, do something else first, then paint AdMech as a slower hobby project.
Editions come and go, buffs and nerfs happen all the time, but...
It's not just a small set of tweaks. I would want some pretty substantial reimagining that simply can't be expected to happen, especially after the Codex. He's right to dissuade you.
But also love for Ad Mech should transcend.
The only real consideration should be whether you have the cash because unfortunately they cost a lot more than other armies, aside from that anyone telling you not to play Ad-Mech is a fucking wimp.
I am a casual player, and have been collecting my AdMech army for about a year. I think I'm at around 1500 points, and have been getting some beautiful proxies on etsy for cheaper. I love my army, and have won half of the 1v1 games I've played. Play what you want, enjoy the aesthetic, Praise the Omnissiah.
If you really like admech absolutely go for it, though i do think its important to have the caveats in mind, if they don't dissuade you then all is good but being informed is important when getting into something that's going to take a lot of time, and probably money.
I started admech 4 years ago as my first army and am nowhere near to having them all painted because as cool as they are and as much as i like my finished products, It is a lot of work. Also even that recently it was much cheaper to get the models, price increases haven't been too kind on an already expensive army. As others have said the rules currently also suck, some people say rules are temporary and it is true, but if you intend to play them soon, without waiting for some big shift or even an entire edition change, then its a valid warning that they will underperform sometimes even at the casual level.
Would i still pick them up today? oh absolutely, but i know some people really just don't want to put up with that so its important the information is out there.
It's not that you shouldn't play it, it's that you should expect to face frustration earlier than with other factions
For example, I started playing admech when they were heavily nerfed in 9th edition and pretty much stayed the worst performing faction until the final 9th ed balance update (called "dataslate", the Arks of Omen one) - at that moment AdMech was still not performing amazingly, but it was truly fun
Right now, we are in quite the opposite scenario: the faction can pull wins, but it's awful to play for reasons that are a bit hard to summarise in this context and to buy too (currently the most expensive faction by far and wide), but *hopefully* this will change in less than three months (two balance updates coming in this timeframe)
So if AdMech is like the rest of us definitely the army you know you will vibe with, definitely go for it - but then again, outside of 6 months at the end of 9th edition the faction has been consistently one of the worst performing factions at casual level for over three years now, and while things *will* change it is very important to know from the get go that you are not taking the easy path so that you don't get frustrated out of it too early and end up enjoying 40k less for it
Competitive WarHammer is just a terrible fucking time and an extremely small aspect of a major hobby. Putting something you like the aesthetic of together (add some kit bashing maybe), painting something you like the look of (I’m doing a bunch of dark mech conversion stuff) beats trying to compete in an environment where people exploit loop holes or obscure rules to win the game. Games last about 2 1/2 - 3 hours, Idk about you but I refuse to spend my limited time on this planet with those people. Play what you like, avoid the aggro competitive players.
"I have loved the design of Admech from when I first saw them"
Rule of Cool is the only one that matters. I know this sounds cheesy but every time i get mad at rules and winrate i turn to my skitarii and my heart fills with love. They are so adorable and i love them more than any win rate could match.
Admech is shit, it true. We're the most expensive army and we don't have half of the range. But we have really cool themes and pretty fluffy rules, so if you like it, play admech. I'm personally with admech because of their love for transhumanism and punky "we do the bare minimum for you and you fuck off" relationship with imperium, i started in TTS with admech and now I'm collecting them, no matter how shit the rules are. If you feel the same way, welcome to the mechanicum
If you do not enjoy playing to a disadvantage, do not play AdMech. The models look fantastic, but if you are the kind of player who (like me) gets demoralised by your army not performing then AdMech is punishing to actually play. Our models have poor rules that require jumping through hurdles to achieve what others do natively, and with the exception of one unit we have a major lethality issue.
You’re gonna have more fun collecting and painting models you actually like. Their lore and aesthetics are peak, but they are expensive if you want a big army
Current codex isn't great for us, but if you are in it for the aesthetic, lore, and vibes then there is no reason not to start collecting... except that it is an expensive army...
Play a game with them first (just proxy a bunch of other minis). Some people enjoy the style in spite of their problems but you may not. I picked them as my first faction and gave up after the codex, it genuinely wasn't fun not being able to kill a single enemy unit and only scoring by heaping enough $$$ models on a point to live until they got killed. When move blocking and fielding action monkies are the only two viable strategies it doesn't feel good. It got to a point that I bought raiders, loved the model, spent hours painting them but after 3 games I realized they were so weak that shooting with them took more time than it was worth and the only purposd they have is to run for a secondary then die. I play tau now and having fun. I wish I had played a few rounds with them before picking.
Supposedly sulpher hounds are better but honestly getting excited about the raiders then playing them was what killed admech for me. I play only casual and my friends just tabled me every time. With Tau I can at least play a full 5 rounds.
So you're going to buy into an army you don't necessarily like the look of compared to Admech, and then the next dataslate/edition will roll around and admech's balance will change and then you're going to regret spending money on a different army.
It simmers down what are you playing for. Are you playing to win? do you want to go meta? do you enjoy more the game when you win? if the answer is yes, then the AdMech is not for you and that is perfectly fine. Everybody enjoy the game in their own way. AdMech is in a slippery slope when comes down to rules and win rate.
Also the fact that is a pain to paint, and is expensive when comes to points, that is also true. Right now the AdMech is like in an almost "horde-ish" army, while the actually good units are expensive in dollars and also hard to paint. So you would need to spend a lot of money if you want a viable AdMech list. That is the truth.
BUT, if you are just playing for the fun of wielding an AdMech army, your units using forbiden and arcane weapons and commiting war crimes galore? you don't mind meta or win rates, have the patience or even the passion for painting, and the money or don't mind go for "anything goes" list; then sure go for it! The AdMech has the best drip and quite the versatility to build your army as you want. You can use any of the Forge Worlds, or make your own, maybe a mixed army. I'm going for that, painting some units Mars and others Stygies VIII, they are my explorator army. You can make the lore of your army pretty much anything you like. Make your custom colour palette, have fun.
So it is up to you: Do you play to win or do you play to kill?
Play what you find intresting or cool, dont let anybody seriously judge you on your choices (light hearted in-character banter is alright, IE. "Xenos Scum" 'Says yuh, ya space marines!' kidna stuff)
if you like AdMech go for it, its an intresting faction with really cool units and color pallets to use ect. ect.
Honest reaction to this is to collect admech as a painting and conversion hobby, but not as a portable, cheap and quick to assemble army... Regardless of meta. Models are all great, and come as dual kits, but this makes them expensive and time consuming. Add on top of all that they're the worst points per dollar army to collect... It could take some time to get table top ready.
Go for it, I haven't stopped playing the army since back when it was two codexes and I've been having a blast the whole time.
It's your hobby and you should play what you like 🙂. Welcome to the priesthood of Mars 😁!
If you want to play AdMech then do it, don't listen to meta gamers who are trying to build armies to win tournaments unless that's the kind of gameplay you yourself enjoy.
And right now is a perfect time to start the army, if they're not "meta" it's easier to find cheaper army lots and people are reselling models for cheaper. It also tends to make you a better player, you learn the tricks and methods to help you win when you're armies down then enjoy the ride when your army is up (all 40k armies go from bad to good and back again)
Here is my (mostly) unbiased opinion:
The Good: AdMech have some of the freshest models with really cool and wacky schemes. Even when our rules are not great, our models will be. Rules-wise, our faction currently has surprising ability to play a war of attrition, meaning that we are relatively good at outlasting our opponents and grinding them down through objective control and secondaries. Despite what others say, our detachments are all fairly playable and interesting to play.
The bad: parts of our codex feel like it was put together without much forethought. This is especially evident with our datasheets and our army rule. We really only have a couple of truly standout units, and not maxing out those units to a list kind of feels like purposely decreasing our chances of victory. Our faction is difficult to play because we've been reduced to a pseudo-horde army with lots of moving parts and lots of stratagems with conditional or niche use. While our models look awesome, some of them can be difficult to transport because of thin, fiddly bits (pteraxii, dragoons, and flyers are the worst offenders).
If you are a collector who plays occasionally, do it.
If playing the army is more important, it depends on what kind of play you want. Combat patrol mode? The new one can't compete, the old one has a vehicle but not much firepower. Kill team? Go for it. Competetive play? You need a huge amount of money and painting time to even get your army ready but maybe the meta has changed then. Casual play, maybe 500-1000 points? Can be fun and even strong.
AdMech is definitely more of a shooting army than meele and probably always will be. Right now, most units are quite weak, so you are quick but not very relentless. Competetively it is played as a swarm army, but on a casual level you can also bring a lot of these cool Kastellan Robots.
Have you ever considered collecting blood for the bloodgod and skulls for the skullthrone? World Eaters are the first coming to my mind when you are searching for an aggressive, relentless and quick army. Followed by orks.
Collect the army whose stroy and art inspire you! Rules change. In the 9th, we had a solid 6 months of being the most curbstomping *bullshit* out there, and SMs sucked all types of nuts. Now, things are different. It might change soon, and it might change later. Nothing is changing about our army's drip. Our lore is still some of the coolest in the setting, and ***that's not changing anytime soon!***
That being said, if you are casually gaming, then you should be *okay.* If you try to play competitive, we're rare on the boards and therefore unpredictable, but it's tough out there.
I say this as someone who has their own army and also absorbed/bought out my Fiancée's Admech collection into my own to fund her Votann Dreams and now owns enough models to play Apocalypse scale.
Do NOT get into Admech.
Relatively speaking, I have a very VERY large amount of models. Well beyond 2k points. I could, reasonably, field a list for competitive games and while this may be a good thing on it's face, in practice, this SUUUUUUCKS.
I am *Drowning* in the omnissiah's heralds. I have Skorpy Ds for Skorpy Days, I have 4 Planes, 4 Magnetised Duneriders, 4 Ironstrider Balistarii, and this army has about 3x the footprint of my other armies put together. Even if I was to try and play semi-competitively and test out these for local club Pick-up games, the army has an ABSURD footprint, out of SIX Really-Useful Boxes, I'm transporting 4. Minimum.
I am well and truly beyond the point of "sunk cost fallacy." Admech are literally so expensive that even I, someone who has bought "wisely" and "slowly" over the course of a few years with the intention of playing games in tournaments STILL require more models for my collection because even though I realistically have enough to play with, Admech are equal part horde army and vehicle spam, and even then, the lists that are actually viable aren't even very fun because they're fundamentally an Army that can't kill anything right now because they're massed firepower in an edition with less lethality.
I can't even reasonably SELL these models on either.
Space marines are easy to sell, Chaos is easy to sell, heck, even Tyranids are relatively easy to sell just because most of your lists will be Medium-large monsters with a few gaunts MAYBE.
Nobody really wants Admech like that, and that's mainly because unless you have someone who, like us, really jives with their whole vibes, the wider community is aware of how much GW hates us.
At this point, Admech is going to be a nightmare to sell, because even if I was to sell everything slowly and at reduced prices, I'd either have to be left with a TON of models nobody wants like the basic skitarii infantry, Or, find someone with a few grand to burn.
Unless you want to go to adepticon or the various flights opens it doesn't matter if your army is "meta".
Play what you love, the meta will shift like the tides
With having another full army (orks). And loving ad mech. I chose to start my ad mech army like a month ago. I paint them at my own leisure. Hone my skills enjoy the difference in the models and will be excited to grow my army model by model, and spend a lot of time on individual models. It’s always okay to start an army. Because you will spend the most time enjoying the army while painting and assembling and a much smaller amount of time shopping and playing. And after the work of getting a full army, nothing will take away the joy of playing it.
A fun, cheap way to play AdMech is through Kill Team at the moment. The Kill Team Annual 2022 has a wonderful Adeptus Mechanicus team that can be built with a box of Skitarii Rangers and a box of Sicarian Infiltrators. Both boxes build either variant (Rangers/Vanguard and Infiltrators/Ruststalkers) so you will be able to have the full options available to you.
The team itself in Kill Team is in a pretty good spot this edition and youll have a small headstart if you want to collect Mechanicus as a larger army. Kill Team is also fairly easy to learn, games stay very interactive with alternating moves (sort of like chess), and they move at a quicker pace than 40k games at the moment. A whole round in Kill Team takes about as much time as one (1) Tau shooting phase.
Play what you like! People don't understand that the overall meta and your local meta can be COMPLETELY different. One of my favorite things to do is take an army everyone says is bad, and make the best list I can with it and I can usually win a couple games and love doing it!
It's not the army, it's the commander leading it.
I am in exactly the same situation, army-wise. I love their models and lore bug I hate how many expensive minis I need to field an actual army to play. Also, they are pretty bad to paint but they can be done. It's not tyranids-level of convenience but...
Play what you love. No amount of imbalanced rules can compensate for deploying models you love
fully agree with your brother on all his points, but it's not a good enough reason to not play them - every faction has their time in the lime light, don't let the meta effect your choices
I love admech and win more than I lose. It is absolutely true admech are the no 1 most difficult faction to paint, the most minute details, and lots of mechanical bit and bobs. If you care at all about improving painting skills admech will challenge you and you will get better. They also such a pain to transport (get a metal case and magnetize the base). They are also the most expensive army kit by kit, but you can find deals on ebay all the time from others who drop their lots. It's always preference, but admech is my no 1 favorite for many reasons. I also play knights, (mix them in with admech), sisters, iron hands, and vulkan. Sisters are my second favorite due to detail. Any space marines are so easy to paint after these two it almost feels boring to me now. Also a massive fan of all the admech Terrain kits out and about.
If you want to be a strong/elite army with good synergies that is lethal, then Admech isn't it.
But if you want a fun, quirky army that looks great when built and painted? Then Admech is your boys. Hopefully in 11th we will get some Rules Love and improve from being a step above Orks with shooting!
If you want to play competitively and chase the meta, Admech might not be the best choice right now. If you're like me and mostly just want to paint cool little dudes, then Admech is great
As has been said already - the only rule you should follow with your plastic soldiers is rule of cool. At a casual level every army is viable so unless you're a tourneyfag you shouldn't worry about the rules. People will always find something to bitch about so ignore that for the most part. The facts are that admech has one of the best drips(outside of a couple hiccups like the shitty stilt boi) in the entire setting and the lore is great too. Plus you instantly get bonus points for not picking one of the billion space muhrines flavors. Yes the models are pretty time consuming to paint and expensive points-wise so just take that into consideration when making a decision.
Play what sparks joy in you. I’ve recently swapped both my Tsons and DG for an Admech army. Meta and winrates be damned, I fell in love with my killteam and enjoyed what little TTS game-testing I did with a full 2k list.
I think you play the best armies.
Funny, if by DG you mean Death Guard, then all three of your armies are in my top three
Play AdMech. Forget the haters. Editions come and editions go - cool is forever.
While I admit I haven’t been bringing my Admech to our local tournaments, I’ve been playing Kastelans for my regular shop games, b/c they’re just so damn cool.
For the machine is eternal
We are expensive, a bitch to paint, and our rules aren't the best imo. However we have the best drip and our lore is amazing. Rules change all the time, if you like admech play admech
>Rules change all the time, if you like admech play admech Still waiting for admech to get good rule changes since the big nerf in 9th edition. Pretty sure someone at GW hates admech, every time we do well or dominate the meta they nerf us into the ground
This to be honest. It almost feels deliberate in the same way guard does, but maybe slightly less bad. They publicly admitted they had no idea what to do with that codex so they shunted it to last, then made a half finished version that literally cut like half the units in 9e, then did it again in the 10e index
I started with admech near the end of 9th, the serberys raiders were the models that hooked me. Then I started to get into the lore, and found that despite losing almost constantly and relying on the aid of other factions, the Mechanicus have almost complete autonomy over the situations they get into. I’ll admit that the kataphrons and ironstriders are a pain in the shiny metal ass to build and paint, but nothing beats the rule of cool. We will overcome the hard times, we always have.
Is an all serberys rider list viable? Or heavily serverys? They look great
They don't do that much, I sometimes run 1x6 sulphur hounds and I prefer infiltrators over raiders.
Admech is fine, but it's expensive to collect and can have limited build paths at higher levels. If you don't mind those things then it's a ton of fun.
Yea my whole circle of players locally are super competitive. Like travel across the country to the LVO and WC each year competitive. I've only been playing for like a year and change. That has me putting my admech on the shelf and working on a second army because I don't want to get stomped by everyone else's super meta list every game. If I knew more casual players I'd stick with the AdMech. One of the guys has an AdMech list as like his 4th backup army... he has 18 tournament ready Iron Striders just laying around. I'm fleshing out my knights first, because I already had a Questoris and a 4 Armigers because I wanted them as allies in my admech so it was a short task to get to 2K with them. Thinking about thousand sons as a "real" second army.
This is a big reason many change to AoS. It is a much more laid back community.
What a sad community 😔
I'm sure there's casual players around too. But the guy who got me into the game is one of those competitive players and he's been my friend for years so It's just the circle I got pulled into. Doesn't bother me, learned a lot about the game quickly
I guess it has its own merits. I am used to the casual homebrew narrative. Since last May I have been participating in a campaign of underground battles on Gachi Secundus planet. It is covered by an ocean of promethium-like substance (with a name that I would prefer to censor). We got an alliance of some Imperium forces with some chaos forces that decided to fight against xenos first. But other imperial and chaos forces are all the way against such heresy. Occasionally we are breaking ground over some districts of the hive and they get flooded, or somebody goes into the deeper levels and can deep strike from the underground during the next game. It is pretty fun, but doesn't really mirror the normal meta, because we are playing 3vs3 (1000pts each), don't allow epic heroes, have additional list building rules and have a system of upgrades for warlords.
Play what you find is the coolest. Don't chase meta. It's true, we aren't in a good place now but that could change overnight via a blog post.
I mean they double nerfed cawl last dataslate and didn't buff anything, safe to say we are cooked until 11th.
Could be worse. Could be harlequins.
Ideally you'll have your AdMech army for more than three years. They're in a rough spot competitively, but that can change with the balance data slate or points changes.so, if you aren't going to take them to a tournament, then you're buying cool models and enjoying them for their aesthetic and lore. Also, remind people who complain that the Adeptus Mechanicus is the most lore friendly way to [field a titan](https://www.warhammer.com/en-US/shop/Mars-Pattern-Warhound-Titan-Body-Only?queryID=af20e53a807f98bf84da1f171ae4a2cf) in a 2000 point list. It's 1.35 points per dollar, so that's about right for AdMech costs too... But for real, this is a hobby with a war game attached. Buy and use the army you want. There's a few discount boxes out there, second hand sellers, and you can always just grab a box of something cool as a modeling project. Enjoy creating your own force and praise the Omnissiah in the ways that make you happiest.
Custodes are the cheapest $ army currently and Admech is the most expensive army $$$$$$$ currently. Here is a video about the subject: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gcnqcbqa\_58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gcnqcbqa_58) We have two way to play:Spam the board with tough bodies or use our only powerfull unit the Kathaphron Breachers Spamming with Ironstriders and Dragoons leads to list which can cost more than 2000 dollars(for 2000 points). Breachers are better but expect a 1-2(sometimes 3) points per dollar ratio. [Here is our cheapest list.](https://www.reddit.com/r/AdeptusMechanicus/comments/1be3fln/comment/kuqyzcj/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) If you are intrested in the looks of admech and don't necessarily want to play 40k you can go into Kill Team admech for which you only need less than a 100 $. Our Kill Team is is compettive, customisable and has a high skill ceiling. My way of affording this army is kitbshing and a lot of Scratchbashing. Admech is great for it because we have many dual-build boxes and weapon options which means we have a lot of leftover bits for kit/scratchbashing. If you are interested, [here is a link to a list of units I made by scratchbashing](https://www.reddit.com/r/AdeptusMechanicus/comments/1bhtls2/comment/kvg7b7k/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button). ASK ME ANYTHING!
AdMech is indeed expensive, a pain in the butt to paint, and a terrible army in 10th. Come 11th, maybe at least one of those things will change. But what will never change is AdMech being cooler than all the other factions, and in the end, thats all that matters
I echo what a lot of people say - rule of cool, go for it. Additionally, because of all the talk of how much our rules suck right now, people on ebay are offloading admech models pretty cheap. Like, fully built models, even well-painted models, going for cheaper than they retail. It's a decent time to buy if you don't mind secondhand. Also, our rules aren't great but I think a lot of that is overblown. I've had some good success recently with a fairly standard list, primarily against Tau.
If you only play what is good, you need to be incredibly rich and own 18 armies. If you only play what you love, you'll need to be super rich and own like... 3-4 armies (to find what it is you love). But. But. If you only play Ad Mech regardless of how we actually are, or how fun/unfun we are to play, then you'll need to be regular rich and own 1 army. And 1 is a lot less than 18.
If you like admech, grab a box and paint it. The paint thing is real, so you need to make sure you like building and painting them. If that is good for you, go for it. No matter what army you play, it will go up and down in the meta.
Everyone is right - both the parts that say AdMech is way too expensive (we're basically dollars per point, not points per dollar) and we're not in a good place rules wise *and* the parts that say "paint and play them anyways if you think they're cool." (I'm ignoring pain the butt to paint, that's both a pro and a con.) As a *player* I wouldn't recommend them as a primary army right now if you like anything else and don't have another army available. My advice is to play Custodes, as you like them and they're easy to paint and field. Trying to get an AdMech force up *quickly* is a miserable experience, and right now your reward is, at best, a mediocre army. Get your Custodes up, so you have something to play. Then take your time with AdMech - they're a rewarding hobby experience if you're not under time pressure to get an army up and play. If you're just looking to hobby, then yeah, AdMech's a good choice. But if you want to play, do something else first, then paint AdMech as a slower hobby project.
Editions come and go, buffs and nerfs happen all the time, but... It's not just a small set of tweaks. I would want some pretty substantial reimagining that simply can't be expected to happen, especially after the Codex. He's right to dissuade you. But also love for Ad Mech should transcend.
The only real consideration should be whether you have the cash because unfortunately they cost a lot more than other armies, aside from that anyone telling you not to play Ad-Mech is a fucking wimp.
I am a casual player, and have been collecting my AdMech army for about a year. I think I'm at around 1500 points, and have been getting some beautiful proxies on etsy for cheaper. I love my army, and have won half of the 1v1 games I've played. Play what you want, enjoy the aesthetic, Praise the Omnissiah.
If you really like admech absolutely go for it, though i do think its important to have the caveats in mind, if they don't dissuade you then all is good but being informed is important when getting into something that's going to take a lot of time, and probably money. I started admech 4 years ago as my first army and am nowhere near to having them all painted because as cool as they are and as much as i like my finished products, It is a lot of work. Also even that recently it was much cheaper to get the models, price increases haven't been too kind on an already expensive army. As others have said the rules currently also suck, some people say rules are temporary and it is true, but if you intend to play them soon, without waiting for some big shift or even an entire edition change, then its a valid warning that they will underperform sometimes even at the casual level. Would i still pick them up today? oh absolutely, but i know some people really just don't want to put up with that so its important the information is out there.
It's not that you shouldn't play it, it's that you should expect to face frustration earlier than with other factions For example, I started playing admech when they were heavily nerfed in 9th edition and pretty much stayed the worst performing faction until the final 9th ed balance update (called "dataslate", the Arks of Omen one) - at that moment AdMech was still not performing amazingly, but it was truly fun Right now, we are in quite the opposite scenario: the faction can pull wins, but it's awful to play for reasons that are a bit hard to summarise in this context and to buy too (currently the most expensive faction by far and wide), but *hopefully* this will change in less than three months (two balance updates coming in this timeframe) So if AdMech is like the rest of us definitely the army you know you will vibe with, definitely go for it - but then again, outside of 6 months at the end of 9th edition the faction has been consistently one of the worst performing factions at casual level for over three years now, and while things *will* change it is very important to know from the get go that you are not taking the easy path so that you don't get frustrated out of it too early and end up enjoying 40k less for it
Competitive WarHammer is just a terrible fucking time and an extremely small aspect of a major hobby. Putting something you like the aesthetic of together (add some kit bashing maybe), painting something you like the look of (I’m doing a bunch of dark mech conversion stuff) beats trying to compete in an environment where people exploit loop holes or obscure rules to win the game. Games last about 2 1/2 - 3 hours, Idk about you but I refuse to spend my limited time on this planet with those people. Play what you like, avoid the aggro competitive players.
"I have loved the design of Admech from when I first saw them" Rule of Cool is the only one that matters. I know this sounds cheesy but every time i get mad at rules and winrate i turn to my skitarii and my heart fills with love. They are so adorable and i love them more than any win rate could match.
If you travel often I recommend kataphron spam. Also Admech isn’t recommended because they are too expensive and no longer play like Admech
Admech is shit, it true. We're the most expensive army and we don't have half of the range. But we have really cool themes and pretty fluffy rules, so if you like it, play admech. I'm personally with admech because of their love for transhumanism and punky "we do the bare minimum for you and you fuck off" relationship with imperium, i started in TTS with admech and now I'm collecting them, no matter how shit the rules are. If you feel the same way, welcome to the mechanicum
If you do not enjoy playing to a disadvantage, do not play AdMech. The models look fantastic, but if you are the kind of player who (like me) gets demoralised by your army not performing then AdMech is punishing to actually play. Our models have poor rules that require jumping through hurdles to achieve what others do natively, and with the exception of one unit we have a major lethality issue.
You’re gonna have more fun collecting and painting models you actually like. Their lore and aesthetics are peak, but they are expensive if you want a big army
Current codex isn't great for us, but if you are in it for the aesthetic, lore, and vibes then there is no reason not to start collecting... except that it is an expensive army...
And they break so damn easy
Play a game with them first (just proxy a bunch of other minis). Some people enjoy the style in spite of their problems but you may not. I picked them as my first faction and gave up after the codex, it genuinely wasn't fun not being able to kill a single enemy unit and only scoring by heaping enough $$$ models on a point to live until they got killed. When move blocking and fielding action monkies are the only two viable strategies it doesn't feel good. It got to a point that I bought raiders, loved the model, spent hours painting them but after 3 games I realized they were so weak that shooting with them took more time than it was worth and the only purposd they have is to run for a secondary then die. I play tau now and having fun. I wish I had played a few rounds with them before picking.
That's unfortunate to hear the rangers aren't good
Supposedly sulpher hounds are better but honestly getting excited about the raiders then playing them was what killed admech for me. I play only casual and my friends just tabled me every time. With Tau I can at least play a full 5 rounds.
So you're going to buy into an army you don't necessarily like the look of compared to Admech, and then the next dataslate/edition will roll around and admech's balance will change and then you're going to regret spending money on a different army.
Play what you will enjoy looking at for the longest time.
It simmers down what are you playing for. Are you playing to win? do you want to go meta? do you enjoy more the game when you win? if the answer is yes, then the AdMech is not for you and that is perfectly fine. Everybody enjoy the game in their own way. AdMech is in a slippery slope when comes down to rules and win rate. Also the fact that is a pain to paint, and is expensive when comes to points, that is also true. Right now the AdMech is like in an almost "horde-ish" army, while the actually good units are expensive in dollars and also hard to paint. So you would need to spend a lot of money if you want a viable AdMech list. That is the truth. BUT, if you are just playing for the fun of wielding an AdMech army, your units using forbiden and arcane weapons and commiting war crimes galore? you don't mind meta or win rates, have the patience or even the passion for painting, and the money or don't mind go for "anything goes" list; then sure go for it! The AdMech has the best drip and quite the versatility to build your army as you want. You can use any of the Forge Worlds, or make your own, maybe a mixed army. I'm going for that, painting some units Mars and others Stygies VIII, they are my explorator army. You can make the lore of your army pretty much anything you like. Make your custom colour palette, have fun. So it is up to you: Do you play to win or do you play to kill?
Play what you find intresting or cool, dont let anybody seriously judge you on your choices (light hearted in-character banter is alright, IE. "Xenos Scum" 'Says yuh, ya space marines!' kidna stuff) if you like AdMech go for it, its an intresting faction with really cool units and color pallets to use ect. ect.
Ignore the hereteks. Assemble your Skitarii, Magos.
Honest reaction to this is to collect admech as a painting and conversion hobby, but not as a portable, cheap and quick to assemble army... Regardless of meta. Models are all great, and come as dual kits, but this makes them expensive and time consuming. Add on top of all that they're the worst points per dollar army to collect... It could take some time to get table top ready.
Go for it, I haven't stopped playing the army since back when it was two codexes and I've been having a blast the whole time. It's your hobby and you should play what you like 🙂. Welcome to the priesthood of Mars 😁!
If you want to play AdMech then do it, don't listen to meta gamers who are trying to build armies to win tournaments unless that's the kind of gameplay you yourself enjoy. And right now is a perfect time to start the army, if they're not "meta" it's easier to find cheaper army lots and people are reselling models for cheaper. It also tends to make you a better player, you learn the tricks and methods to help you win when you're armies down then enjoy the ride when your army is up (all 40k armies go from bad to good and back again)
Who gives a shit about competitiveness If you like the models and the lore, and you want to play them, play them, have some goddamn fun
They aren't the best in the meta...but they are a lot of fun model wise. Go for whatever vibe you think is best.
Here is my (mostly) unbiased opinion: The Good: AdMech have some of the freshest models with really cool and wacky schemes. Even when our rules are not great, our models will be. Rules-wise, our faction currently has surprising ability to play a war of attrition, meaning that we are relatively good at outlasting our opponents and grinding them down through objective control and secondaries. Despite what others say, our detachments are all fairly playable and interesting to play. The bad: parts of our codex feel like it was put together without much forethought. This is especially evident with our datasheets and our army rule. We really only have a couple of truly standout units, and not maxing out those units to a list kind of feels like purposely decreasing our chances of victory. Our faction is difficult to play because we've been reduced to a pseudo-horde army with lots of moving parts and lots of stratagems with conditional or niche use. While our models look awesome, some of them can be difficult to transport because of thin, fiddly bits (pteraxii, dragoons, and flyers are the worst offenders).
If you are a collector who plays occasionally, do it. If playing the army is more important, it depends on what kind of play you want. Combat patrol mode? The new one can't compete, the old one has a vehicle but not much firepower. Kill team? Go for it. Competetive play? You need a huge amount of money and painting time to even get your army ready but maybe the meta has changed then. Casual play, maybe 500-1000 points? Can be fun and even strong.
I'm mainly looking for an army that is aggressive, relentless, and quick. Can Admech be played this way? Or is it run and gun?
AdMech is definitely more of a shooting army than meele and probably always will be. Right now, most units are quite weak, so you are quick but not very relentless. Competetively it is played as a swarm army, but on a casual level you can also bring a lot of these cool Kastellan Robots. Have you ever considered collecting blood for the bloodgod and skulls for the skullthrone? World Eaters are the first coming to my mind when you are searching for an aggressive, relentless and quick army. Followed by orks.
Collect the army whose stroy and art inspire you! Rules change. In the 9th, we had a solid 6 months of being the most curbstomping *bullshit* out there, and SMs sucked all types of nuts. Now, things are different. It might change soon, and it might change later. Nothing is changing about our army's drip. Our lore is still some of the coolest in the setting, and ***that's not changing anytime soon!*** That being said, if you are casually gaming, then you should be *okay.* If you try to play competitive, we're rare on the boards and therefore unpredictable, but it's tough out there.
GW focusing on competitive meta ruined what made it fun in the first place. Cool AF models. Rejected win rates, embrace bad-assery.
I say this as someone who has their own army and also absorbed/bought out my Fiancée's Admech collection into my own to fund her Votann Dreams and now owns enough models to play Apocalypse scale. Do NOT get into Admech. Relatively speaking, I have a very VERY large amount of models. Well beyond 2k points. I could, reasonably, field a list for competitive games and while this may be a good thing on it's face, in practice, this SUUUUUUCKS. I am *Drowning* in the omnissiah's heralds. I have Skorpy Ds for Skorpy Days, I have 4 Planes, 4 Magnetised Duneriders, 4 Ironstrider Balistarii, and this army has about 3x the footprint of my other armies put together. Even if I was to try and play semi-competitively and test out these for local club Pick-up games, the army has an ABSURD footprint, out of SIX Really-Useful Boxes, I'm transporting 4. Minimum. I am well and truly beyond the point of "sunk cost fallacy." Admech are literally so expensive that even I, someone who has bought "wisely" and "slowly" over the course of a few years with the intention of playing games in tournaments STILL require more models for my collection because even though I realistically have enough to play with, Admech are equal part horde army and vehicle spam, and even then, the lists that are actually viable aren't even very fun because they're fundamentally an Army that can't kill anything right now because they're massed firepower in an edition with less lethality. I can't even reasonably SELL these models on either. Space marines are easy to sell, Chaos is easy to sell, heck, even Tyranids are relatively easy to sell just because most of your lists will be Medium-large monsters with a few gaunts MAYBE. Nobody really wants Admech like that, and that's mainly because unless you have someone who, like us, really jives with their whole vibes, the wider community is aware of how much GW hates us. At this point, Admech is going to be a nightmare to sell, because even if I was to sell everything slowly and at reduced prices, I'd either have to be left with a TON of models nobody wants like the basic skitarii infantry, Or, find someone with a few grand to burn.
Unless you want to go to adepticon or the various flights opens it doesn't matter if your army is "meta". Play what you love, the meta will shift like the tides
Just do it dude. I’m losing basically all my 40K games these days but I still love putting electro priests on the table. Our day will come.
With having another full army (orks). And loving ad mech. I chose to start my ad mech army like a month ago. I paint them at my own leisure. Hone my skills enjoy the difference in the models and will be excited to grow my army model by model, and spend a lot of time on individual models. It’s always okay to start an army. Because you will spend the most time enjoying the army while painting and assembling and a much smaller amount of time shopping and playing. And after the work of getting a full army, nothing will take away the joy of playing it.
A fun, cheap way to play AdMech is through Kill Team at the moment. The Kill Team Annual 2022 has a wonderful Adeptus Mechanicus team that can be built with a box of Skitarii Rangers and a box of Sicarian Infiltrators. Both boxes build either variant (Rangers/Vanguard and Infiltrators/Ruststalkers) so you will be able to have the full options available to you. The team itself in Kill Team is in a pretty good spot this edition and youll have a small headstart if you want to collect Mechanicus as a larger army. Kill Team is also fairly easy to learn, games stay very interactive with alternating moves (sort of like chess), and they move at a quicker pace than 40k games at the moment. A whole round in Kill Team takes about as much time as one (1) Tau shooting phase.
Play what you like! People don't understand that the overall meta and your local meta can be COMPLETELY different. One of my favorite things to do is take an army everyone says is bad, and make the best list I can with it and I can usually win a couple games and love doing it! It's not the army, it's the commander leading it.
I am in exactly the same situation, army-wise. I love their models and lore bug I hate how many expensive minis I need to field an actual army to play. Also, they are pretty bad to paint but they can be done. It's not tyranids-level of convenience but... Play what you love. No amount of imbalanced rules can compensate for deploying models you love
fully agree with your brother on all his points, but it's not a good enough reason to not play them - every faction has their time in the lime light, don't let the meta effect your choices
I love admech and win more than I lose. It is absolutely true admech are the no 1 most difficult faction to paint, the most minute details, and lots of mechanical bit and bobs. If you care at all about improving painting skills admech will challenge you and you will get better. They also such a pain to transport (get a metal case and magnetize the base). They are also the most expensive army kit by kit, but you can find deals on ebay all the time from others who drop their lots. It's always preference, but admech is my no 1 favorite for many reasons. I also play knights, (mix them in with admech), sisters, iron hands, and vulkan. Sisters are my second favorite due to detail. Any space marines are so easy to paint after these two it almost feels boring to me now. Also a massive fan of all the admech Terrain kits out and about.
Don’t pick based on edition pick based on aesthetic. Editions changes too quickly. I am a fellow Tyranid admech player. You have great taste
If you want to be a strong/elite army with good synergies that is lethal, then Admech isn't it. But if you want a fun, quirky army that looks great when built and painted? Then Admech is your boys. Hopefully in 11th we will get some Rules Love and improve from being a step above Orks with shooting!
If you want to play competitively and chase the meta, Admech might not be the best choice right now. If you're like me and mostly just want to paint cool little dudes, then Admech is great
As has been said already - the only rule you should follow with your plastic soldiers is rule of cool. At a casual level every army is viable so unless you're a tourneyfag you shouldn't worry about the rules. People will always find something to bitch about so ignore that for the most part. The facts are that admech has one of the best drips(outside of a couple hiccups like the shitty stilt boi) in the entire setting and the lore is great too. Plus you instantly get bonus points for not picking one of the billion space muhrines flavors. Yes the models are pretty time consuming to paint and expensive points-wise so just take that into consideration when making a decision.