Editing Warhammer 40,000/7th Edition Tactics/Cult Mechanicus (section)

==Special Rules==
====Canticles of the Omnissiah==== 
Like Skitarii, you get a series of one-use army-wide buffs that last a turn, but rather than simplistic WS/BS adjustments, the Cult Mechanicum get significantly different buffs. The flip side is that they are dependent upon the number of units you have in your army at the start of your turn when the canticle comes into effect. If you have more units the buff gets even better. Also, when counting the number of units you discount any squads that are falling back, and the canticle remains at that power level even if units regroup or new ones arrive on the table and bring your total higher:
*'''Incantation of the Iron Soul:''' - Having 1-3 units gives them ''Stubborn'', 4-7 gives them ''Stubborn'' and the ability to reroll failed morale, fear & pinning checks. Having 8+ units just goes stuff it and gives them all ''Fearless''.
*'''Shroudpsalm:''' 1-3 = ''Stealth'', 4-7 = ''Shrouded'' while having 8+ gives both rules.
**This, right here, is great, especially with the Battle Congregation and its ability to recycle Canticles. Not only can you give all your Cult units a 4+ cover in the open (2+ if they're in any cover more substantial than razor wire) for up to two turns, thanks to the wording of the Stealth and Shrouded special rules, you can also give that to any non-Cult Battle Brothers your Dominus and/or Engineseer is chilling out with.
*'''Chant of the Remorseless Fist:''' 1-3 units gives re-rolls of one to-hit in close combat, followed by re-rolls of one and two at 4-7, then simply getting to re-roll all fails to hit if you have 8+ units on the tabletop.
**For your Electro Priests, this is pretty meh, given that thanks to Zealot, they reroll all To Hit rolls in the first round of combat anyway, but the WS3 Kataphron Breachers suddenly got a lot scarier. Combat oriented Kastelans with this and conqueror protocols will be fucking lethal.
*'''Benediction of Omniscience:''' 1-3 units gives re-rolls of one to-hit while shooting, followed by re-rolls of one and two at 4-7, then simply getting to re-roll all fails to hit if you have 8+ units on the tabletop.
**This is great for the turn that most of the enemy is in range and you have most of your guys still alive, around turn 2 is best time.
*'''Invocation of Machine Might:''' 1-3 = plus one strength, increasing to plus two at 4-7, then plus three at 8+ units.
**This sounds like one of the least useful ones at first glance, but can be applied well, too. If you do not give your Castelans Power Fists, you can still ramp their strength up to 9 for the one round they need stupid amounts of attacks at high strength. Also works well to reach Instant Death thresholds.
*'''Litany of the Electromancer:''' Your dudes generate electricity; in close combat, for every model you have with the Canticle the enemy takes a S4 AP- hit at Initiative 10 that phase. Increasing to two hits at 4-7 squads, and three hits at 8+.
**Now you know why the Electro Priests are overcosted. If they costed less, you could just field a hundred of them, send them into close combat and drown the enemy in S4.

Also note that the buffs only apply to friendly models that have the Canticles of the Omnissiah special rule as according to the rulebook, special rule held by independent characters do not confer unto squads unless specifically noted and vice versa, so you can't attach a Dominus to a space marine squad and make them electrical or boost the accuracy of guardsmen. The only ones that apply to allies would be Shroudpsalm and The Incantation of the Iron Soul, which provide USRs that can confer to attached squads. (The warlord trait "Layered Psalm Code" may be an exception, more below.)

====Battle Congregation====
The AdMech get a specialized FOC.  1 HQ and 2 troops are mandatory, with 6 additional troops, 4 Elites, and 2 HS slots optional.  Yeah, there's no Fast Attack options available here, not that you would have anything to fill the slots with. And yes, you read that right, you get exactly 1 HQ, no optional additional slots (though thankfully like most books you can abuse the shit out of formations to bypass this, allowing you to get up to 3 HQ's in a battle-forged army).  You get a mandatory WT re-roll and the ability to re-use one of the Canticles of the Omnissiah.

===Grand Convocation (Fall of Cadia)===
FINALLY. IT HIT. Now you have the means to field Knights, Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus units together in a single formation just as they always meant to be! In fact, you must field units from at least two different Factions in this FOC, and the restrictions strongly resemble a doubled Primary Detachment. You get '''2-4''' HQ units, which can be Belisarius Cawl himself, ordinary Tech-Priests Dominus (that's up to FOUR Domini!) or Enginseers, 4+ Troops, up to 6 Heavy Support, Elites and Fast Attack (all choices from both codexes are listed), and up to three Knights as Lords of War. Command Benefits include IWND for all vehicles (what did you expect? yes, your Knights repair themselves IN ADDITION to being tended to by Tech-Priests), PotMS for all vehicles within 6" of an HQ at the start of a turn, re-roll Warlord traits (any traits), and if you field a full FOC, [[Cheese|EVERYTHING gets Canticles of the Omnissiah]]* . Yes, you now have [[Awesome|self-aware undying stealth robots]]. This is the FOC to use, as it allows you to bypass both the Kataphron tax and the Dominus restriction, as well as giving you excellent anti-air (take a full unit of Dunecrawlers, upgrade one of them with the Icarus Array, and use PotMS with the other two walkers) and a monstrous [[DISTRACTION CARNIFEX]] that just won't go away, all without fiddling with other formations.

^^ But only If you play at apocalypse points levels "Canticles of the Omnissiah" is a bonus for fully filling out the FOC {except troops which has no limit} of this detachment even at minimum squad sizes with no upgrades it is simply not possible in 2500 points, in addition it stipulates what units you can take by name. So it removes the ability to take any forgeworld units in this detachment which is a major let down especially with the new imperial armour fires of cyraxus due out soon. Without the army wide Canticles of the Omnissiah the Conclave Acquisitorius which strangely does allow forgeworld knights or the war convocation are better for most games.

*Army-wide Canticles are just an icing, IWND and PotMS are already significant enough bonuses to take it. How Forgeworld handles their units is irrelevant, they should have adapted to the Decurion system long ago. You cannot take FW Knights in a Conclave since it specifically references Codex: Imperial Knights, so you will have to use a separate Detachment for these. And War Convocation is a WD exclusive, it might not be allowed everywhere and your opponents might refuse to go against it, while with Grand Convocation you can build a relatively normal AdMech army.

*This can also fill the holes in both Mechanicus Codexes. The Skitarii have great numbers of cheaper troops, but fewer tough units, (unless you count triple Onagers with IWND,) and their phosphor is rare and shorter ranged. (Unless you repurpose Dunecrawlers. The Cult Mechanicus have much tougher units. Kataphrons or Kastellans with Phosphor Blasters can play pseudo-markerlight for Rangers or Vanguard. Admittedly you'll still be hopelessly without transports, but you can still ally in a Land Raider. Heck you could possibly even fit some Infiltrator and Electro-Priests in the same vehicle! (You mad bastard!)

===Warlord Traits===
#'''Reinforced Exoskeleton''' - Grants the Warlord Eternal Warrior. Exactly the same as its Skitarii counterpart. Much better on the remarkably tough Dominus than on a Skitarii Alpha, though.
#'''Artificer Armament''' - One of the Warlord's weapons becomes Master-Crafted. Also identical to Skitarii. Since your Dominus has BS5 already, one reroll from Mastercrafted ''should'' be all it takes to make sure all your shots hit.
#'''Masterwork Bionics''' - Reroll failed Feel No Pain rolls. You guessed it, another copypaste from the Skitarii codex. Only this time, it's actually a pretty good trait.
#'''Archaeotech Specialist''' - If the Warlord discovers a Mysterious Objective, he can choose the result of his roll. Probably combo's with scryer-skulls so you can simply choose the result of any objective on the table, so give your opponent booby traps. Alternately, you can give the "choose to Skyfire" to a big unit of Breachers.
#'''Inside the Mind of the Machine''' - The Warlord's close combat attacks all gain Haywire. Combine with Anzion's Pseudogenetor for 4+D6 Haywire attacks on the charge. Now your cyber-pope can pop '''Titans''' in one round of combat. Other than that, it's sort of redundant though. In all likeliness, your warlord will be a Dominus, and he already has a Dataspike built in, so all of his close combat attacks already have Haywire should you so desire. It does lend itself to fighting Chariots, though, since now your attacks can all be S5 AP2 and Haywire, so scary for both the rider and the pimp chair.
#'''Layered Psalm-code''' - For the Warlord and his unit, all Canticles of the Omnissiah always count as being used at their highest level of effect regardless of how many units are actually on the board. Obviously most useful in small forces, but it helps your army stay on top of the game even as you lose units. One of the better traits. Whether or not this applies to units without canticles is debatable. Please see the discussion page for more details.

===Tactical Objectives===
;11 - Praise the Machine God
:1 VP at the end of the turn if you used Incantation of the Iron Soul or Shroudpsalm. If you haven't used either one of those yet. it's a free VP.
;12 - Networked Archaeotech
:Roll 2 d6- their numbers correspond to two objective markers. Controlling one by the end of the turn nets you 1 VP, and controlling both is worth d3. 
;13 - Study the Machines of the Foe
:Score 1 VP if you destroy a vehicle during your turn, but not as a result of an Explodes! result or Crash and Burn. Given all the Haywire weapons you can use, it's probably best to just strip hull points off a relatively weak vehicle to get this.
;14 - Reclaim Lost Knowledge
:1 VP if you control an objective held by the opponent at the start of your turn, which goes up to d3 if you control 3 or more.
;15 - The Will of the Omnissiah
: Score 1 VP if you used either Invocation of Machine Might, Litany of the Electromancer, or Chant of the Remorseless Fist ''and'' completely destroyed an enemy unit in your Assault phase. *cough* assault castellans *cough*
;16 - Destroy, Record, Rejoice
:Gain 1 VP if you completely destroyed an enemy unit during the shooting phase. If you destroyed both a vehicle and a non-vehicle in the same shooting phase, it's boosted to d3 and goes up to d6 if the unit destroyed was either a Super-heavy Vehicle or a Gargantuan Creature. You might be able to pull off the former with enough Haywire attacks and some luck, but don't bother trying to fight any GCs.