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

==Starting Your Army==
=== Buying ===
So you want to start hoarding technology and shooting cancer at people, but where should you start? The Skitarii Start Collecting box is excellent value, getting you a unit of Vanguard/Rangers, your first Onager Dunecrawler, and your Techpriest Dominus. All units are pretty much mandatory when running a strong Adeptus Mechanicus army. The Start Collecting box comes at a decent discount over buying the units separately. Notably, buying a seperate Dunecrawler is almost as expensive as buying the Start Collecting box, so when you feel like you need a second Dunecrawler, just buy another Start Collecting box.

Two Start Collecting boxes will net you 20 vanguard/rangers, 2 Techpriest Dominus, and 2 Dunecrawlers, which is an excellent starting point for your army, as it will be the backbone of whatever else you decide to field. Remember you can field your Vanguard/Rangers in squads of 5, so if need be, you can run four 5 man squads. A solid purchase after you have the basics down would be either Kastelan Robots, or a few close combat specialists like Sicarian Infiltrators, or Electropriests (though they are by far the ugliest models GW has ever produced.
*You can now get the Fist of the Omnissiah box (No longer in production) for that second Dunecrawler that you need, an Engineseer, Kataphrons, and another set of Vanguard for $170.

Alternately, Forgebane comes with a Techpriest Dominus, 10 Vanguard/Rangers, and a pair of Knight Armiger Warglaives. If you can find a Necron player to split it with (or have/want a necron army), it'll make for a good supplement as well. 
*No longer in production, you might however find one in a non-GW hobby shop.

There is a new Start Collecting Box and it is pretty awesome. You have your standard unit of 10 Ranger/Vanguards and a Enginseer, not the coolest thing ever. But then you get a Skorpius. A few of these and you have your infantry of choice and either their rides or the best Mechanicus tank lined up and ready to go.

=== Your First Army Composition ===
Depending on your preference, you'll either be running a combined arms list, or a Heavy Support list. Adeptus Mechanicus are very Command Point hungry, so running at least one Battalion detachment is always worth it, which means you'll need 2 HQ choices and 3 troop choices. Before you start buying models left and right, consider which Forgeworld you want to run. If you want to run Mars, you will need to purchase Cawl, if you want to run anything else, one Techpriest Dominus and a Techpriest Enginseer will do. Next, you will need to run a minimum of 3 troops. If you want to run Vanguard heavy lists, I suggest you go with either Stygies VIII or Graia. Run three 10 man squads of Vanguard, preferably at least one squad full of Plasma for marine/vehicle hunting. If you want to run any other Forgeworld, I suggest you run 3 minimum squads of Rangers or Vanguard instead, just to comply with the troop tax. You now have your Battalion ready, and you've got 8 Command Points to play with.

Your Battalion Detachment has room for 6 elites, 3 heavy support, and 3 fast attack choices. Rather than using these slots, however, consider starting a Spearhead Detachment for an additional Command Point. Please note that you can give this detachment a different Forgeworld dogma, should you so desire. The sweetest Adeptus Mechanicus units are found in Heavy Support, and you'll want to run lots of them. It will require 1 HQ choice, which you can fill with a cheap, barebones Techpriest Enginseer, and a minimum of 3 heavy support choices. At the very least, you'll want one Onager Dunecrawler armed with an Icarus Array to deal with fliers. The rest is up to you. Want Kastelan beep boops? Go to town. Want more Dunecrawlers? Go crazy. Unless you are planning to run more than 3 units of Infiltrators, Dragoons or Electropriests, just keep them in your Battalion Detachment.

Another option is to simply try and maximize your Command Points by running two full Battalions. It's fairly easy to achieve since Techpriest Enginseers is an HQ choice now, and cheap as can be, clocking in at a measly 30 points. Get two additional Enginseers, and three troop choices (small or big, whatever suits your need, however 5-man ranger squads are now only 35 points), and you'll have all the slots you'll ever need, plenty of troops for objective capping, and 12 Command Points to use. Besides, having 2 additional Enginseers to repair your units isn't a bad deal, to begin with.

=== Brigade Minimum Requirements ===
If you have your heart set on building a Brigade detachment, then it can be accomplished for a minimum of 840 points.

Here are the recommended units:

*HQ: 3x Enginseer
*Troops: 6x Ranger
*Elite: 3x Servitors (or 3 Datasmiths by double the price if you want something slightly more useful)
*Fast attack: 3x Ironstrider Ballistarii with Autocannons
*Heavy support: 3x Onager Dunecrawler with Eradication Beamer or Twin Heavy Phosphor Blasters

To customize this list and bringing it up to about 2000 pts swap out an Enginseer for a TPD or Cawl. Take a large unit of 4-6 Dragoons and two lone Ballistarii. Take a large unit of 4-6 Kastelans instead of a Dunecrawler. Change the Dunecrawler guns to Neutron Lasers or Icarus Arrays. Swap a unit or two of Rangers for some Kataphrons for the added firepower or some Vanguard for frontline screening and more small arms fire. Use those 3 Elites slots for something useful like Priests or a Datasmith for your blob of robots.

=== Modeling Tips ===
Kastelan Robots are still derpy Baymaxes. And as mentioned before electro-priests look like ass. You might be screwed on the priests, but we do not need to settle for the derpbot 9000. 
* The cheapest and easiest way to improve their look is to simply rotate the head 180 degrees and lower them further into the torso. That will give you a much cooler domed head with a smaller silhouette, and a more sinister and inhuman appearance.
* wargameexclusive.com makes alternate resin heads for Kastelans. Or pretty cheap Penitent-Engine-looking alternatives if you wanna go that way. If you like those models, they also make a female Dominus (Domina?) and Kataphrons WITH LEGS. And a pin-up version of the Tech-Priests and some Skitarii for [[Promotions]].
* Forge World does make the Castellax which looks godly (and a little bit like the Hulkbuster) but is a tad expensive. You can kitbash a Datasmith with a spare TPD (every Admech player should have a ton left over from SC and Forgebane boxes) and some Skitarii/Sicarian bits. Keep in mind when (if) the 30k dataslates drops you will need to do some work to make your Castellax and kit-bash Kastelans stand out from each other. 
* Or if you have some Kataphron bits left over conversions may solve some problems. Flip the head around to the smooth side, leave the thigh armor off and your Kastelans start looking better. 
* Gluing the barrel of the Heavy Grav Gun in place of the Incendine Combustor for a good-looking shoulder gun. If you have any Grav-guns from Space Marines left over (please say you do) glue them to the back of the Power Fists and voila. Even better, use the grav-bit from combi-weapons. Take two, glue onto the back of the fist, then grab the armor off the top of the razorback turret and glue over the grav.
* Glue the "three sensors" bit from the sensors/comms of the Icarus Dunecrawler kit onto the Katelan's face plate for the Armored Trooper VOTOMS look. 
*There's also a shapeways store for bits that resemble FW Castellax. Link here:https://www.shapeways.com/shops/stahlgeist-eisenfabrik
*New Years Open Day 2019 at Warhammer World revealed new "Ambot" sculpts for Necromunda, seen here: [https://youtu.be/I9IqHwCa62k]. A few gun swaps, as these come with wrist bolters and no shoulder cannon, and you'll have suitably bad-ass robots, finally. Just keep in mind the Ambots are significantly shorter than the Kastelan, however each Ambot kit comes with twice the amount of legs required so some converting can make them tall enough.

For the Electro-priests take some Servitors. Grabbing the Extra Arc claws and Hydralic Fists and put those on and you have electric dudes with melee weapons.
* For the Corpuscarii Priests using the Heavy Bolter Servitor and replacing the barrel with an Arc Rifle might be enough.
* Mix the Electro-priests kits with some Empire Flagellants for good looking fanatics.
* If you have any Ranger heads left over from a skitarii troops box, a bit of crafty knife work to flatten the joint can make excellent alternatives for electro-priests.
* Another option are the Negavolt Cultists from Blackstone Fortress, if you want a more creepy, servitorish look.

Blackstone Fortress comes with UR-025, an Imperial Robot model. Snap off the Assault Cannon barrel and stick some leftover Kataphron guns for Breachers.