Warhammer 40,000/7th Edition Tactics/Skitarii

Why Play Skitarii

Revealing their hand in white dwarf, the Mechanicum are getting a presence in core 40k in the form of the Skitarii (or "Tech Guard" for those of you not in the know). This is NOT the same as the Horus Heresy Mechanicum army or units. Though if Forge World have half a brain they'll start finding ways to add their 30k units into the 40k army in an upcoming Imperial Armour book.

But for just now all we've got to run with is a few units until more information comes to light.

Reasons for playing Skitarii

• You've wanted Mechanicum units in 40k for a long time
• From appearances, every unit has Relentless so no static gun lines for you
• Funky-ass wargear that can't be found anywhere else
• They look to be a middle ground between Astra Militarum and Astartes in terms of individual power level.

Skitarii Special Rules & Weapons

Melee Weapons

• Arc Maul - A Haywire power maul
• Taser Goad/Lance - A cool tesla-type melee weapon that causes two extra hits for every 6 you roll to hit. The Lance version has a higher strength of +3 when charging and also doubles the initiative of the user (generally to six). Unfortunately neither version has any AP to speak of, though get enough of them together and you can overwhelm enemies with lots of hits.

Ranged Weapons

• Arc Weapons - Haywire weapons; come in pistol or rapid fire format for your pleasure. Also has a nice S6 if you don't want to shoot at vehicles for some reason, though it's AP value is crap.
• Cognis Weapons - A regular Autocannon or Lascannon, but with the ability to make snapshot attacks at BS2 .
• Galvanic Rifle - the "Basic" Skitarii weapon is pretty good. 30" range rapid fire weapon with S4 AP4 and precision shots. Not bad at all when you compare it to the basic weapon of every other Imperial Faction.
• Phosphor Weapons - Imagine firing a Tracer round from a Heavy Bolter and this is what you'll get. The same strength and AP, but only single shot. Any wounds or hull points caused on a target will light them up like a christmas tree and reduce their cover save for the rest of the turn. Also makes them easier to charge at.
• Radium Weapons - Cancer guns, have a low strength of 3 as basic, but a to-wound of 6 causes two extra auto-wounds which must be saved separately. The carbine version is Assault 3, but you also get a two shot sniper version as a special weapon choice.
• Plasma Caliver - An 18" range, 3-shot assault plasma gun. It still gets hot because the mechanicum haven't figured out plasma like the Tau or Eldar have.
• Transuranic Arquebus - An Armourbane sniper rifle, now remember that Sniper weapons are S4 against vehicles, so Armourbane can only reliably glance AV11, so you're better off using something else to chase after Land Raiders with.

Wargear

• Skitarii Warplate - It's Carapace Armour with a different name.
• Refractor Field - 5+ invulnerable, you've seen these before
• Conversion Field - Like the Dark Angels get, a 4+ invulnerable that goes off like a flash grenade when hit.
• Omnispex - Like an Auspex, but made Omni, though it still does the job of reducing cover saves on target units. The owning model does not have to forgo his own ranged attack to get the benefit.

Unit Analysis

Troops

• Skitarii Vanguard - Your basic unit. 9 points a model for something almost straight out of Fallout.

• Skitarii Rangers