Editing Warhammer 40,000/8th Edition Tactics/Adeptus Mechanicus (section)

===Troops===

Our army is two 7E armies finally fused together, and here's where it shows. Try to strike a balance between the small Skitarii and the big Kataphrons that works well with the rest of your army, as they complement each other nicely: Kataphrons can clear the ground from afar and hold objectives, Skitarii can go and storm them. And with their new transport, storm them they can. Skitarii can also tie up enemies for Kataphrons to finish, and Breachers can bar access to your Ranger snipers. Try to guesstimate what any unit can endure, lest your lines crumble and leave your expensive heavy guns exposed to the enemy. And with the recent points drop this just got easier.

'''Skitarii'''<br>
In 8th edition, table control is paramount to victory, more than it ever was now with non-scattering deepstrikes and double-fights to pile in multiple units. Enter reliable and spammable Skitarii. Unlike your regular Imperial GEQ, their 4+/6++ give these T3 dudes a chance of survival, and they're cheap enough that they can be used to control the field while your other units, like the much heavier and damaging Cult Mechanicus troops, clean up said field. Despite their status as light mortal infantry, they carry enough BS3+ firepower that it matters. <br>
400pts can get you up to 50 Vanguard models. There are two main ways of using them: naked MSUs of 5 for body blocking and filling up battalions, or fully equipped squads of 10. Units of 5 basically ignore morale, but squads of 10 can hide their special weapons behind regular guys, and are a better use of CP as Enhanced Data-tethers not only patch their vulnerability to morale but enable them to pull stunts like ''advancing with safe supercharging Plasma'' Calivers or ''still hit enemies with -1BS on a 2+''. An Omnispex can be used instead to ignore cover, a bonus that doesn't require CP and that is ever-present.

*'''[[Skitarii]] Rangers:'''  Their 30" Galvanic Rifles have enough range to contribute to fights and the S4 needed to be a bother, which makes this squad great at garrisoning backfield objectives and ruins. While they put less volume of fire than Vanguard, their guns' better range, strength, and AP-1 on a 6+ to wound make them more effective against single-wound infantry than Rad carbines. All in all great value from the cheapest unit in your army. Unless you are sitting on backfield objectives (which our HS are normally doing) vanguard will often be better considering the difference is 1pt a model.
**Transuranic Arquebuses are THE special weapon this squad should take, as if your taking rangers they should be backfield and their awesome 60" range doesn't waste Galvanic Rifle range as the other guns do, and with actual stats (S7 AP-1 D1d3) on top of regular sniper rules there will always be targets of opportunity for them to attack. Dealing 2D to vehicles, even flyers, from your deployment zone isn't too hard to do, and is actually pretty comfy coming from a troop unit whose job would usually be to just stand back and bodyblock rear line deepstrikers. However you need a surprisingly high number of these to consistantly snipe characters.
**This unit struggles as vanguard are only a pt more expensive and better in all circumstances except sitting on backfield objectives and half our army do that really well.

*'''[[Skitarii]] Vanguard:''' Vanguard are your Skitarii frontliners. Their 18" Assault 3 Rad Carbines let them advance and still hit on a 4+, and their rate of fire is such that their 2D on a 6+ to wound can proc enough times to be a concern to heavy infantry while still dealing lots of hits to the smaller ones. With their Rad saturation aura (-1T is better than +1S), they can also help as melee support to Sicarians and Electropriests and melee soup allies.
**Statistically speaking they are actually some of your best anti-tank when within 18": A couple of failed 6s is already chunk of a vehicle gone, and is more than what a cheap troop like them has any right to do. Tl;dr they have enough dakka to actually do chip damage to a vehicle, so if there are no better targets it's not necessarily a waste of firepower.
*** The not good against vehicle case. If you're relying on chip damage, its not anti-tank. Its solid mass fire but against vehicles you're hitting on 3s, wounding on 6s with no AP. So, sure, you'll chip two wounds off whenever a shot goes through, but math says (assuming no re-rolls) a squad of 5, is 10 hits per turn, 1.66 wounds, (assuming all vehicles have at least T6), against most likely a 3+ save, meaning, on average: .55 shots will get through. that means for every TEN vanguards you fire into that rhino ONE shot will reliably make it through. Congratulations on dealing 2 wounds on a 67 point rhino with 80 points of skitarii. There's an argument that 80 points of infantry dealing two wounds to a model worth more than them is worth it.
*** The good against vehicle case. Your probably taking 6 units as a tax for CP anyway so that's 30 models we don't need objective holders backfield as our HS choices are sat on them. Sure a single 5 squad doesn't do much but you use the 6 tax vanguard squads as one or two blocks of firepower assumming RR1's because thats pretty consistant in our army with dominous and canticles thats 7.77 wounds on a T8 3+ armour save model ( The previous example uses a poor comparator due to its cheapness and theres no loss of efficiency when vanguard fire  at beefier targets like knights and leman russes). Sure shooting infantry is going to be more efficient but in comparison to 30 rangers in RF range that do 1.94W to a knight the vanguard show there flexibility (almost 4 times the output). Not all lists have low T targets and when you hit that skew list this is a strong supplement to our HS choices. In addition as of engine War 3 of the new warlord trait auras buff vanguard fire adding ap or extra hits. Also by comparison the neutron laser on 3 onagers with RR1 only deal 6.22W to 4++ knight.
**Rangers may be a tiny bit cheaper, but Vanguards lend themselves more for bubblewrap duty: enough ROF to trigger overwatch, and their Rad aura gives you the option to commit Breachers to deal with weakened enemies. Having options is nice.
**Unlike Rangers, Vanguard find themselves in melee more often. It's worth noting that you can upgrade the alphas however with only 2 attacks and a 4+ Ws it doesn't seem worth the pts however if you do take them you only need to kill 1 or 2 models a game to recoup the cost.
**Pistols are actually surprisingly useful on vanguard squads, since most of their weapons have 18" range anyway, its not that outlandish for them to make it within 12" and get to take an arc pistol shot for 1 point more, but you have to sacrifice an extra radium carbine to do it, so its really your call. 

'''Kataphrons'''<br>
The big guys of the Cult Mechanicus are closer to tankettes than they are to people: their Ogryn-sized T5 frames make them difficult to remove from an objective, and with 3W your HQs can actually repair them. Their long ranged firepower doesn't suffer the penalty for moving; like a Russ tank group, they ARE the gunline wherever the enemy finds them. This comes at the penalty of advancing only d3"...which you don't really care much about: the only maneuvering they need is usually just to get a line of sight to the enemy. GREAT firepower coming from Troop units. 

*It's worth noting that these puppies can be a huge fire magnet. A smart opponent will point medium weaponry at these guys and frankly, they're not quite as tough as they seem. Point efficiency and multiple wounds don't mean a lot when a punisher cannon can delete a 3 man squad in one round of shooting. 
*To compensate, provide them with the Stygies VIII Dogma to increase their survivability considerably.
*Or take in units of 6 in agripinaa to bring the full squad back from the dead if one model survives. With CP to burn this is horribly good on breachers.
*Or take as Ryza plasma destroyers hoping you'll play a knight list and can make your points back in one round of shooting accepting their won't be a second round.
*Or Lucius and deepstrike them in guaranteeing destroyers one round of fire.

*'''Kataphron Destroyers:''' Dedicated anti-MEQ gunships. As they trade a measure of protection (4+/6++) for amazing firepower, they will be a prime target for your enemy so they have to be defended.
**'''Guns:''' Heavy Grav Cannons are reliable; Heavy ''5'' AP-3 deletes infantry, and D1d3 against anything with a 3+ save melts heavy infantry and can even dent monsters and tanks. Plasma Culverins are also good. They have better 36" range But are more expensive , and  Heavy d6 shots are unreliable. They shine when supercharging, becoming able to deal with anything...but they can also blow up. ''Now that's balance!'' Luckily, <u>you can spend CP to get safe plasma:</u> '''Elimination Volley''' (needs nearby Kastelans), '''Noospheric Mindlock''' (needs to belong to a '''Servitor Maniple''' formation) and '''Plasma Specialists''' (needs to belong to {{W40kKeyword|Ryza}}). Neither option will really disappoint, but plasma is CP-hungry. A new solution that only costs 50p and no CP would be Daedalosus, who can give +1 to hit but needs to be a bit closer (24") to the front line, and can only designate one target.
**'''Sidearms:''' Their Phoshor Blasters are the budget option to use against targets of opportunity. However, Cognis Flamers give Destroyers protection against melee at mere +1pts. Bubblewrap units are still great, but with flamers their overwatch becomes nasty; their main guns already have enough RoF to proc overwatch hits and the stats for it to matter.
*Plasma culverins are high variance over grav cannons. Their D6 shots make them unreliable and absolutely undercut their usefulness over the grav cannons, even with their higher strength. (High variance can be both a strength and a weakness depending on how well you accept risk.) Anyone running plasma destroyers will be useing one of the many ways to add +1 to hit cited above so risking 1's is not a concern. Plasma is 2pts more (negligable on such small expensive units). Don't let the T5 with 3W and 4+ with shroudpsalm to get a 3+ fool you: these guys are glass cannons and prime targets for anything that mulches heavy infantry. Anything with decent strength or a point or two of AP will turn these guys into spare parts in one go if you don't do something to protect them, even with shroudpsalm. My personal advice is to abuse the {{W40Kkeyword|[Acquisition at any cost]}} stratagem to get them to 2+/5++ saves on an objective and hope they can weather the storm with enough guns still intact to do their job, OR (and my personal favorite idea) consider running them as {{W40Kkeyword|[Lucius]}}, as the immunity to AP1 is absolutely fantastic on them (and its pretty solid overall) and the ability to pay a CP to hide a 6-9 man unit of kataphrons in deep strike is worth its weight in gold, as they have more than enough range to be confident that they can drop in somewhere they can hit their target, and you can even give your dominus the Lucius relic to teleport him to the kataphron gunline without losing his support for the footsloggers turn one, or paying the CP to deep strike him. Also, for 50 points you should never ever not take Daedalosus, especially when you're taking these guys (they're only BS4+ after all).

*'''Kataphron Breachers:''' Trades some firepower for 3+ armour but, most importantly, ''at discount price''. Enough to be heavy speedbumps yet disposable, do the comparison: Space marines pay 13pts for T4 3+ save wounds, Breachers pay 10pts. Intercessors pay 85pts for 10W and their guns are restricted to anti-infantry; Breachers bring 9W for 90pts and their Heavy Arc rifles  (36" Heavy 2 S6 AP-1 D1d3) are not only basically anti-infantry autocannons, but also tear D1d6 chunks out of vehicles, so they can even help your overworked Onagers. And unlike Destroyers, Breachers aren't defenseless in combat, with three WS4+ attacks using Arc Claws (S6 AP-1 & D1d3 vs vehicles). With those stats, they are a screen by themselves. If you NEED an objective to be positively, absolutely defended, activate '''Acquisition at Any Cost''' and they'll be very difficult to remove, with ''4A'' and a 2+/5++ save. (Alternate take if supported by vanguard S6 Ap-1 still wounds marines on 2's and a unit of 6 will kill 3.75 tac marines) their not gonna touch a dedicated melee unit but can still give a bad day to enemy troops or small characters) and now we have unlimited warlord traits prime hermeticon increases their melee output by 50%
**Torsion Cannons are hard to defend. S8 AP-4 is nice but they cost a lot, ''are single-shot'' and D1d6 is somewhat unreliable. Likewise, Hydraulic Claws are like power fists...but with only AP-1 like Arc claws they will struggle to go through their targets' armour Sv, and Breachers aren't ''dedicated'' melee units, could throw one into maybe kill Vehicles and Monsters in melee.
**Agripinaa breachers are really strong if you have a huge amount of CP as a 6 man squad can potentially bring 5 back from the dead and relocate if just one survives. Which considering their tankiness is quite possible. Do this a few times and count the firepower you've soaked.
***The clue is in the name for these guys though; the above chap is absolutely correct in his analysis for the average game, but GW covers bases for more narrative games too: Fortifications & other Immobile units are auto-hit so when you need to <i>breach</i> through some Fortifications you have at least 9 S10 -1AP auto-hitting hydraulic claws vs the S6 of arcs, and that's 9 lots of 3+ rolls instead of iffy 5+.