Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Mechanicum (30k)

Ave Omnisssiah!

Why Play The Mechanicum?

You've seen the models, right? For the first time since Rogue Trader, the followers of the Machine God can finally take to the field en masse! You can embody the grimdark universe of Warhammer 40,000 (30,000?) with your exotic Martian death-rays, terrifying Battle Automata and horrific Cybernetic monstrosities.

Also? Robots.

The Mechanicum is a curious force as it consists of several lists (currently two) representing different Ordos, and one for Taghmata (The vanilla). Each list is fairly small, with limited unit choices, but a large amount of flexibility within many of these units. Each new Horus Heresy source book from Forge World would seem to be adding new units or lists to create an ever-expanding range to choose from. Be warned; This is a slippery slope that may result in the loss of financial security, family & friends and house & home...

Also, BIG Robots!

Unusually for Forge World, the Mechanicum is one of the cheapest armies to get in to. It's possible to start an army with a single Magos, and a pair of Castellax or small Thallax Cohorts.(Adesecularis if you really want to break the mould!)The army lists, whilst capable of standing alone, are intended to be used as allies for the Legion army list. As a starting point for a new army, this is ideal, as you need even less to get have something you can field. The Mechanicum units provide you with some unique possibilities for conversions, too. Take a cursory glance around coolminiornot or a painting forum and you'll find some damn fine examples. Of course, if this is not your thing, Forge World's own models are more than capable of satisfying any model fanatic.

Gameplay wise, you are universally hard as nails. There are only 3 models with 1 wound, 1 of which has a 3+ save, another T5, another dirt cheap and full of upgrades, all of which can benefit immensely from FNP. However with a handful of exceptions your models are somewhat pricey, a number are a steal for how effective they are but never the less when all you can do is choose between a variety of pretty expensive choices (with one, very notable exception), which you will almost certainly dump more points on top. Tough as you are, this is primarily a crutch for the vast the majority of your army is short range, though you hardly lack in long range if you wanna dollop in some points here and there.

It should be noted, that there are currently three different lists, Reductor, Legio Cybernetica and Taghmata. The main question is why you would pick one over the others? This mostly applies to Taghmata and Legio-Cybernetica - Reductor is really limited right now (despite the books promising to expand upon it), but if the Forgeworld weekender (as of February 2015) has shown some very interesting vehicles that look like they would be in the jurisdiction of a siege-cult, but as of now there really is only so much you can do with Thallax. As for the other two, The Legio-Cybernetica possess Archmagos which allow for more reliable Cybertheurgy and making it hardier, Castellax can be used to fulfill minimum troop requirements, all Automata may use 4" Coherency (Ferrox Thallax pale in comparison to Ursarax for melee). Finally the Taghmata is meant to be the Vanilla, but saying this is "Vanilla" AdMech wouldn't be doing the Taghmata justice. It has everything the first two books have and more. Generally, this is a "go-to" if you're not sure and if you are sure you'll probably pick up Tahgmata as well, but they're limited in other ways, not being able to fill the minimum Troops requirement or a Land Raider not being a Dedicated Transport for example.

It should also be noted that the Ad Mech is getting two new army books in 40k: Skitarii, and Cult Mechanicus

Special Rules

Armoury of the Omnissiah

Being a heresy era list, we get some funky wargear that's not found in later eras/outside of the hallowed halls of the machine god. Augments may also be a thing.

Ranged Weapons

• Archeotech: Ancient, S6 AP3 Master-crafted pistol. Runs on the pricey side, but good for mincing Power Armored troops.
• Conversion Beam Weapons: Could be seen as inverse Melta, inflicting greater damage at longer ranges. The only two difference between the heavy and regular version is the former has the Firing Calibration rule, which means the unit has to remain stationary in order to fire, even if it is Relentless or a Vehicle. How often are you going to get to fire it at 42" range on a standard 48"x72" table? On a corner it has 60% of the table in a S10 AP2 Large Blast killzone (not accounting for Line of sight). Get to both corners and then, yeah, pretty much you can always fire some S10 on the enemy's deployment zone.
• Graviton Weapons: Not to be confused with Grav-weapons; their wounding mechanism has nothing to do with the enemy's armour save. These Heavy weapons (not Salvo) possess no Strength, but have both Concussion and Haywire effects. They also have a curious way of causing wounds by forcing the enemy to roll D6; if the result is above their Strength they take a wound - a result of 6 always causes a wound. So they are effectively Strenght 3, wounding GEQs on 4+, and MEQs on 5+, making it largely ineffective against infantry blobs. Its redeeming trait is that it also creates Difficult and Dangerous terrain in its blast radius, so it can at least severely impede their movement.
• Graviton Imploders: The 40k grav-guns you're used to. Trouble with Terminators? Belial-led Deathwing got you down? Accept no substitute! These are Salvo 2/4 AP2 grav guns, so the roll to wound mirrors the armor save of the target, with 18" range. So now you can have it both ways. It has problems when faced with large blobs with poor/no armour, but those things are generally easyly killed bye everything else, so it balances out.

• Las-Lock: The Minie-Ball muzzle-loaded Rifle to the Lasguns AK47. Shorter 18" range and fewer shots at Assault 1, but packs a nasty S4 AP6 punch. Of course, as of current, AP6 is completely useless, but S4 however is not. Tahagmata Tech-thralls may take Induction Chargers, giving them an additional shot, which could really give the edge against likely smaller units of Marines or Imperial Army infantry.
• Mitra-Lock: The Scattergun of the Las Family. It's an 8" range Las-lock, but it gains Shred.
  • Induction chargers: An optional attachment to both Las-locks AND Mitra-locks (HH3, p. 221) it upgrades them to Assault 2.
• Maxim Bolter: Assault bolters with 50% more shots but 50% less range. Too bad it's Assault instead of a Pistol, so it doesn't give you +1 attack or the ability to fire it Gunslinger style, while still having a measly 12" range.
• Mauler Bolt cannon: Spiced-up Heavy bolter, with S6 AP3 Pinning, but keeping the short-ranged trend at only 24".
• Photon Weapons Funky disco-light ray guns that have Gets hot, AP2, Blind and LANCE. Comes in Gauntlet (12"|S5|Assault 2, no lance), Thruster (48"|S6|Heavy 2) and a cannon (60"|S7|heavy 2) sizes.
• Plasma Fusil: S6 AP3 Salvo 2/3 plasma that doesn't get hot. Since most of our dudes get Relentless, Salvo isn't really a concern. They are terrifyingly efficient marine wood-chippers.
• (I)Rad Weapons Operating somewhat similar to the space marine's atomic munitions, these are what you get if you rip out a cathode ray tube from an old television and soup them up. They shoot Fleshbane templates, and even if the enemy survives he'll die later of space-cancer, represented in crunch by Rad-phage, which means unsaved wounds leave the model with a Toughness and Strenght penalty for the rest of the battle. They come in Lucifex (pistol), Cleanser (assault) and Engine (Heavy) sizes, and the largest one gets Torrent and AP3.
• Rotor Cannon: Basically a Salvo Lasgun. Most of the things that can take it are Relentless, so it's a nice way to add volume of fire, but more importantly, at 30" range. They're still S3, so don't make any illusions.
• Volkite Weapons Ancient ray guns that date back to the Age of Strife, they were in the process of being replaced by the bolter as the preferred weapon of the Space Marines due to difficulties in production and maintenance. Volkite weapons have the 'Deflagrate' special rule, which means each unsaved wound caused inflicts another automatic hit! They come in five flavours, Serpenta (pistol), Charger (Assault 2), Caliver (Heavy 2), Culverin (Heavy 4) and the monster Carronade (S8 with Haywire and a beam effect that lets it hit everything in a straight line in front of it). They have 15" range increments, so the Culverin is 45", but the Charger only 15", and most only have AP5.

Melee weapons

• Corposant Stave: A stun batton cranked up to 11. Str +1 AP4 Concussive and Two-handed weapon, that uses Haywire instead when hitting vehicles.
• Paragon Blade: +1S AP2 Specialist melee weapon without Unwieldy that inflicts Instant Death on a wound roll of 6. Archmagos Prime exclusive, but unless he is a Malagra, he has better things to do rather than being stuck in melee. And even there, being only I3 he's better off with a chainfist.

Equipment & Special Rules

• Abeyant: A special ride for your Magos, this grants 1 Wound, Move Through Cover, Very Bulky, IWND and Hardened Armor (re-rolls failed armour saves from template or blast weapons, but reduces charge, sweep advance and run moves by -1" and counts as Void Hardened in ZM). You'll always want them, but keep in mind that they are rather pricy.
• Augury Scanner: No unit can infiltrate within 18" of the unit. In addition, grants Interceptor to the unit's Rapid fire & Heavy weapons but only against enemies within 18" of an Augury scanner. That last part is incredibly important, turning this from an auto-include item to highly-situational, namely, to keep someone from infiltrating with a melta near your tanks' rear AV. But don't expect much against Terminators.
• Battlesmith: If a Battlesmith is in base contact with, or embarked upon, one or more damaged vehicles during the Shooting phase, they can attempt to repair on of them instead of firing a weapon. On a D6 roll of 5+ you may do one of the following: 1) Restore a lost Hull Point 2) Repair a Weapon Destroyed result 3) Repair an Immobilized result to the attendant vehicle. If a Weapon Destroyed result is repaired, that weapon can be fired in the following Shooting phase.

• Cyber Occularis: Like servo skulls, but they're actually models now. They're Jetpack infantry, bought as equipment by Magi and must deploy with him, but afterwards they can wander off on their own. They don't take up any transport space, but can only ride vehicles when accompanying their Magos. All models of the same detachment within 3" of them gain Interceptor, and enemies within 12" get their cover saves reduced by 1. Nice combo with Thallax. Unfortunately, they can't join units, but they have a 3+ save and Stealth, so bubble wrap them inside other units. Hilariously, having BS3 and a TL Laspistol they're better at shooting than guardsmen.
• Djinn-skein: Comboes quite nice with cyber-occularis. You can designate one unit within 6" of your Magos or any of his cyber-occularis to gain +1 BS, including your own Magos, and Barrage weapons can draw line of sight from them. It also prevents the scattering of units that arrive within 6" of your Magos.
• Cortex Controller: Any unit with a model within 12" of a guy with Cortex Controller no longer suffer/benefit from Programmed Behavior. This is phase based, so things like running, consolidating, etc., can take them out of range during a turn.
  • If the guy has a cortex controller and the Battlesmith rule, they can repair wounds on Battle Automata with the same repair roll. Hand out these to your Magi and Techpriests and watch your Castellax never fucking die.
• Cyber familiar: +1 to your invuln save, up to 3++, and lets you reroll failed tests other than Ld and Dangerous terrain.
• Infravisor: Gain Night Vision, but Blind tests are taken at I1. Not that you have such high I to begin with.
• Mechanicum Protectiva: Iron Halo for Magos.
• Nuncio Vox: Older pattern of the current Locator Beacon. Radio backpack that prevents the scatter of models that Deep strike 6" near the vox user AND allows Barrage weapons to use the carrying model's line of sight (range is still measured from the firing model).
• Servo-Arm: Models with the Battlesmith special rule may add +1 to their Repair roll result. May also make one additional Str 8 AP 2 Unwieldy attack in melee.

• Machinator Array: Models with the Battlesmith special rule may add +2 to their Repair roll result. Adds +1 to wielder's Toughness and provides Night Vision. Also comes with flamer and inferno pistol, which you can shoot both in the same shooting phase, or one of them, or one of them and one of your other ranged weapons. May also make two additional Str +1 AP2 Shred Unwieldy Armourbane attacks in melee.
• Lorica Thallax: Thallax armor, grants them a 4+ save and FnP(6), but prevent them from Sweep Advancing.

• Lumbering Advance: Models with this rule cant Run or make Sweep Advances.

Vehicle and Battle Automata Equipment & Rules

• Anbaric Claw: Electroshock ram that can be used once per player turn. S5 AP4 Rending at I10, but it hits all units near 1" of the hull (except for transported units). It also hits Ramming/ed vehicles.
• Atomantic Shielding: The same as Legion Contemptors, 5++ save against shooting and explosions, 6++ against melee. If the battle automata explodes, add D6" to the radius.
• Battle Automata Power Blades: AP2 Rending weapons. Being MCs, Battle Automata melee attacks are already AP2, so the main use for them is the extra attack and, with some luck, some armor penetration due to Smash getting worse in 7th Ed.
• Blessed Autosimulacra: Weaker version of IWND for vehicles, regaining a HP on a 6.
• Cybernetica Cortex: The Battle automata's synthetic brain, which takes them from mere battle servitors to T-100 stats. Since "Battle Automata" doesn't exist as a rule, this is what usually identifies them as such. It grants them Fearless, Adamantium Will, Cybernetic Resilience and Programmed Behaviour.
  • Programmed Behavior: Unless within 12" of a friendly model with a Cortex Controller or already locked in combat, the following restrictions are placed on the units:
    • Methodical: May not make Sweeping Advances or Run.
    • Fire Protocols: The battle automata may fire up to three of its weapons at the same target. A straight upgrade, since you weren't running anyway, and an incentive to move your Magos out of range on purpose. It's not a game changer, though: At close range you get to fire an extra bolter, or both flamers on top of your primary, but that's about it. Voraxes benefit more; firing 8 S3 shots backed up by S7 Rending/Shred is a noticeable upgrade to their dakka, and gives them an easier time making units flee in the upcoming assault phase.
    • Target Priority: If an enemy model is within 12" and in line of sight during the shooting phase, the Battle Automata must fire all its weapons against the closest enemy unit it is able to harm. If there is no enemy model within 12", they are free to select targets as usual.
    • Onslaught: If an enemy model is within 12" during their assault phase, the Battle Automata must attempt to charge the closest enemy unit. Note that the Battle Automata may still only charge the same unit it fired at in the Shooting Phase. If consolidating after combat, they must do so towards the nearest enemy model if there is one within 12". The most noticeable "disadvantage" of unnacompanied automata, if enemies with Meltabombs or tarpits get within 12" range, that's it, you're facing them in CC instead of doing something more useful.
  • Cybernetic Resilience: Succesful wounds scored by Poisoned weapons must be rerolled, but Haywire wounds them on a separate D6 roll of a 6, all kind of saves allowed. They also reroll Fleshbane wounds, but don't expect much from that.

• Enhanced Targeting Array: +1 BS, and reduces enemy cover save by 1.

• Flare Shield: Front facing force field that reduces the strength of incoming frontal shots by -1. Template/Blast weapons get a -2S reduction instead, but melee/Destroyer hits are unaffected.
• Paragon of Metal: If a cortex makes BA like T-100, this makes them like Skynet herself. Paragons of Metal aren't subject to Programmed Behavior and gain IWND and Rampage, but never count as Scoring and if Cybertheurgy fails on them they go full rampant, becoming Malifica instead of rolling on the mishap table.
• Reactor Blast: When killed, Battle Automata Explode! on a D6 roll of 6.
• Siege Wrecker: Specialist Castellax CCW. S10 AP2 with Concussive and Wrecker, which enables it to re-roll building penetration and adds +1 to the Building Damage chart.
• Shock chargers: Adds 'Concussive' to all melee attacks, including Smash and Hammer of Wrath hits.

Relics of the Dark Age of Technology

So, new book gave us couple of new toys!

• Cortica Primus Nice piece of equipment! Counts as Cortex Controller which gives you ability to cast those awesome Cybertheurgy spells on ENTIRE unit of Battle-automata, but if you roll Mishap, its result is modified by +1 for every model in a unit. But anyway, treat it just like overpriced Cortex Controller, because Relics can only be taken by Independent Characters, and I don't remember Magos Dominus being Indep, or Magos Prime having Cybertheurgy special rule. Really, FW? (Emailed FW about this a little while ago, they said they were going to give the Dominus access to this item, and Independent Character in a future update. Ave Omnissah.)
• Contagium Mechanica Scary sentient computer virus came to destroy enemies of Omnissiah! Well, at least their vehicles. It is a 12" Assault 1, Haywire weapon. If vehicle survives this DEVASTATING hit, then it starts to spread the virus itself. In each of your subsequent Shooting phases, each vehicle within 12" of the survivor (and the survivor itself) takes a hit from the weapon. Every vehicle that survives then become infected, and everything goes round 'n round until there are no more tanks to destroy... Awesome.

Warlord Traits

All generic Mechanicum Warlords from all three lists have the option of getting a Warlord trait from one of the charts in the main rulebook, or rolling on their own unique chart:

1. Master of Mechanism: Select one MC unit OR vehicle squadron with at least one AV12 or more side in the same detachment. This unit/squadron gets It Will Not Die. Generally the best one. It gives the best part of Paragon of Metal to a whole unit.
2. Perfected Targeting: In the Shooting phase, select a Heavy weapon within 6" of the Warlord. The weapon counts as Twin-linked for the turn. This can be done every turn. Generally agreeable as any Mechanicum army will have many heavy weapons. More useful for Dominus than for Prime's though.
3. Predictive Augury: The Warlord and the unit he is joined to hit on 5 and 6 for Overwatch. In some setups, this is incredible (Magos Prime), in others, useless (Magos Dominus).
4. The Death of Flesh: All units in the detachment have Preferred Enemy (Infantry - All Types) while within 3" of an objective. Combined with Hatred on Tech-thralls and you have some pretty nice melee blobs.
5. Dread Rites: The Warlord and the unit he is joined cause Fear and are immune to it. They also receive the Adamantium Will special rule. Quite powerful for a Malagra melee Archmagos.
6. Battlefield Analysis: After deployment but before the game begins, can select a piece of terrain in the opponent's deployment zone and reduce its cover save by -1. Can stack to ludicrous levels with the myriad of other cover-reducing options your army has.

Cybertheurgy

Psychic powers for machines. WHERE IS YOUR WHEEL OF CHEESE NOW?!*

In order to successfully use a power, the cybertheurgist must take a Leadership test. Depending on the strength and difficulty of the power, a bonus or penalty may be imposed on the Leadership value of the model making the test (note that this is applied always to the characteristic value being tested, not the dice result [does it affect Stubborn models?]) If the test is passed, the power takes effect. If the test is failed , the power does not take effect. If the test is failed because a double 6 was rolled, the power has both failed and gone awry. Roll immediately on the cybertheurgy mishap table.

• Cybertheurgy mishap table
  • 1-3 Signal Corruption: The target battle automata may only fire snap shots and fights with WS 1 in assaults for the next game turn.
  • 4-5 Corrosive Paradox: The target battle automata suffers a wound with no armour or cover saves possible.
  • 6 Malifica: The machine spirit rebels and gains self awareness! The battle automata is now destroyed for the purposes of VP's and is no longer part of the controlling players force. If part of a unit, it is separated and placed out of coherency with the unit. The battle automata is still used in the previously controlling players turn, will from now on move towards and shoot at the closest unit each turn and then assault that same unit if able. Both sides may now target the battle automata if they desire.

• The Powers of Cybertheurgy
  • Rite of Celerity, Ld Modifier +1: Target battle-automata gets +2 Initiative for the duration of the effect.
    • Very situational, Castellax and Thanatars don't need it (as it's very hard to wound them in combat except for Primarchs who will still hit first), but Vorax will be at I6, hitting before commanders (except Emperor's Children commanders) and will not be hitting simultaneously as Marines.
  • Rite of Eternity, Ld Modifier 0: Target battle-automata gets It Will Not Die for the duration of the effect.
    • This isn't that handy, Battlesmith is a far more reliable option (as this requires a leadership check BEFORE you make the IWND roll), but if you really need to heal that Castellax, or don't have a reason to use any other Rite, then there's no reason you cannot use this Rite and Battlesmith (since they aren't mutually exlusive).
  • Rite of Fury, Ld Modifier -1: Target battle-automata gets +D3 attacks for the duration of the effect.
    • For context, A unit of a Castellax on the charge will mathematically produce 7 S6 (or 1 S6 and 6 S10) AP 2 attacks (1 HoW, 2 normal attacks, 2 charging+rage, 2 from Fury), which in anybodies book is incredible.
  • Rite of Destruction, Ld Modifier -2: Target battle-automata may fire its weapons twice against the same target in its shooting phase, but cannot use ranged weapons in the next shooting phase.
    • Useful at long ranges, like firing 4 Darkfire shots or letting loose 16 rotor gun shots at 30" with Voraxes, not to mention planting two Hellex Large Blasts. It can be useful at close ranges too by double firing Mauler cannons or flamers, but if you're planning on charging Fury might be better.
      • Rules lawyers may be able to overwatch/intercept as they explicitly say it can't fire in the shooting phase, not "not shoot at all".
  • Rite of Dread Castigation, Ld Modifier -2: May ONLY target ENEMY battle-automata. Both sides roll a D6 and add Leadership (Cybertheurgist for the attacker, battle-automata for the defender). Battle-automata suffers a wound with no armour or cover save allowed for each point that the attacker's total exceeds that of the defender.
    • Pretty useful as Magos (and especially Archmagos) have much higher Leadership than Battle-automata, making wounds that ignore Battle Automata's usual advantage: their high Toughness. It can help kill Paragons of Metal or Thanatars very quickly and thanks to how the rules are currently written, causing a mishap still has you roll on the mishap table, which still works out in your favour as you either stun it or cause a wound (no armour/cover saves), and if you get the Malifica result it's even better as you've essentially given yourself another model if the automata was in a unit, which can no longer be controlled by the other player.
  • Rite of Immolation, Ld Modifier -3: Target battle-automata self-destructs. Replace the model with a Large Blast marker. S = Battle-automata's Toughness, AP = Battle-automata's armour save. If a mishap happens while trying to use Rite of Immolation, don't roll on the mishap table, instead the Malifica effect is automatically applied.
    • While this one can be hard to pull off, it's amazing when it does. Use on Thanatars who somehow got stuck into combat (as they're usually going to be stuck there for the entire game) for a blast capable of ID'ing marines at AP2, or Castellax for a S7 AP3 blast that'll wipe out the unit they're up against (well worth it for 85 points, especially if you're up against a 250+ pts assault squad).

Ordo Reductor Unit Analysis

The Ordo Reductor is in HH1: Betrayal, and it's fairly small. In fact, at first there wasn't even a standard HQ unit; you had to take a Special Character to field it as a legal army on the battlefield! The Magos Dominus from book two is now available to the Ordo Reductor as an HQ and is quite attractive with T5 base, but still, you have just 1 Troop option...and it's not even a exclusive one! However, it gets a Mechanicum Land Raider as a dedicated Transport, which the other lists don't. Indeed, one of the biggest draws of this list is the ability to field custom Land Raiders. If you're aiming for a mobile, mechanized army you'll probably like this list more. However, it's heavily reliant on "stand-ins" from the Legiones Astartes list (though the stand-ins are campaign only), as there were very few Mechanicum models released when the book came out, and as such it was originally meant to be allied alongside a Space Marine Detachment. It might see an assortment of "Ordinatus" variants come in the future.

HQ

• Magos Reductor Caleb Decima: Probably the most misrepresented character in all of 30k. His ability to command enemy tanks? Gone. His Thallax bodyguard? Replaced by an optional (and hideously expensive) Servitor retinue...which don't even help his Battlesmith rolls! But at least he gets a retinue, unlike other Magi. Even his crunch is poorly written. He has Archmagos stats, with one less WS/BS but one more S/I. Having high Initiative and Strength for a Magos, but only WS3 though thanks to his MC Unwieldy Poweraxe (which makes him S6), MC Bolt Pistol (for two re-rolls and an extra attack) and his two extra Machinator attacks he's still pretty decent in melee, though with his longest re-usable ranged weapon being a MC Boltpistol he's certainly not a shooty character. So, is he worth it? YES. Because of his special rules, Caleb is an awesome, if somewhat expensive support HQ, specially when taken as an allied one as the book intends to. Not that he isn't good in a primary detachment either. Unfortunately, unless used as support he's awkward to use, being too fragile to go solo and his retinue not having enough dakka. He can add some firepower/melee to a squad, but Thallax lose their mobility advantage when having him (just in case you wanted to be true to the fluff for some silly reason). Therefore, the easiest way to use him is having him tend to your siege engines with his Battlesmith and Master of Destruction. His special rules are:
  • Master of Destruction: Gives all of his attacks the Sunder, Tank Hunters and Wrecker Special Rules, but most importantly, he can grant these rules to a nearby Heavy/Ordnance weapon if he doesn't shoot (which he usually wont unless he's near an enemy tank), including his customized Land Raider DT. The best part? It's an inherent rule instead of a Warlord Trait, so you can benefit your Legion stuff when taken as an ally (MoD Vindicator Destroyer!) or combine it with Mechanicum WTs, not to mention helping your Titans.
  • Curse of the Omnissiah: Makes him a death sentence to anything less than a Titan, being able to unleash 2D6 Haywire shots, which means he can scream a Spartan to death on a single turn. This counts as firing a weapon. Unfortunately, it's very difficult to use, being Heavy One Use and having only 18" range. And being only T5 with a 3+/5++ save and no access to transports with fire points or Relentless (like the Magos Reductor) means Caleb will face danger to use it and after using it, because it Gets Hot. Feel free to move when targeting a flyer, though. If you want to use it you'll need staying power, so take a Cyber familiar for a 4++ invuln and an Abeyant for IWND & Hardened Armor.
  • Castellan Reductor (Campaign only): It gives you much needed flexibility, allowing you to add the next entries to your army:
    • Elites: Techmarine Covenant with 'Stubborn' instead of 'Legiones Astartes'. They are meant to count as Myrmidons...which have been released now, so technically you can field Myrmidons in a Reductor army.
    • Fast Attack: Avenger Strike Fighter, instead of a Lord of War like normal Reductor lists.
    • Heavy Support: Legion Artillery Tank squadron. Now you'll be able to get them without needing Astartes allies.

• Magos Reductor: Another support character, but still a better choice than above. It's a renamed Magos Dominus with a few more options, no Cybertheurgy and more special rules. Much cheaper than Caleb and can be upgraded to a nearly unkillable monster through the Archmagos, Mechanicum Protectiva + Cyber Familiar (3++ save), Machinator Array (to buff him to T6), and an Abeyant as well as giving him good guns like a Photon Thruster but these costs all add up QUICK (ending up 40 points more than Calleb or the same as a tooled up calleb (215pts) and for context a Reductor starts at 65 pts) and are not a good idea as it will become very hard for him to make his points back for a few reasons:
  • A tooled up Archmagos (without extras like Rad Grenades and Servo-arm) needs to make back 215 points somehow, and needs to fulfill multiple roles which are mutually exclusive. If they're in a unit of T5 (like Thallax), regular shooting will still have them be wounded as if they were T5, if they're in a in a unit of Thanatar-Calix which are T8 then you've wasted their Toughness and Relentless bonuses since those units shouldn't be in combat. They're going to need to shoot while being tooled to heal (cannot do both in the same turn). So pick a role you want them to fulfill, don't try to make him do everything or you'll never make your points back.
  • Archmagos with a Power Axe, Pistol, Rad grenades and Machinator Array makes for a good assault leader in a tough unit (especially with giving Relentless to units like Thallax), and ends up cheaper and more survivable than Calleb without being unreasonably expensive (put him in the same unit as Calleb to remove Calleb's major weaknesses, mainly lacking Relentless).
  • A normal Reductor with a Photon Thruster, Machinator Array and Augury Scanner is an intresting tactic and definitely one to consider for your Thanatar-Calix shepherd, it's cheap, makes you durable, and can help bring much needed high Strength/low AP firepower to the field, protect your side from deepstrikers and heal Thallax when they need to without being unreasonably expensive.

Troops

• Mechanicum Thallax Cohort: Shock Troops cyborgs invented by the Ordo Reductor and sometimes gifted to other organizations in return for aid and fealty. Thallax are Jet pack Ogryn equivalents, being pretty hardy with T5 and 3 wounds. Their special rule Djinn-sight impedes infiltration within 24" of them and reduces enemy cover by 2. Their Lightning guns are somewhat short ranged (18"), but being Jet pack units their effective threat range is 30" and they're able to pull that jump-shoot-jump trick. Their superb mobility and S7 Rendind guns means they are effective against vehicles (even AV14 with some luck), but they don't pump out enough dakka to be much of a threat to infantry. Even though they're WS3, being S5|T5 FnP(6) means they're not too shabby in combat either. Overall pretty damn good but start to cost a lot of points quickly and while they have access to great weapon options, this isn't a fantastic way of picking up a tonne of high strength weaponry. Being Reductor however you don't have a lot of choices, so go figure. Furthermore, Thallax can be upgraded with one augmentation. Being their inventor, Reductor Thallaxii have access to all four of them and remain Troops no matter what they choose, but again, keep an eye on their point cost.
  • For killing armored targets, buy them Destructor (Tank Hunters) to make sure you get that Rending roll, and maybe a Multi-melta too. But Armoured Ceram- In ~1500 pts games it's not that easy to Melta-proof all your vehicles, and Fortifications can't get that (and are affected by Melta [p.110 7th E.]). Furthermore it's longer ranged than Lightning guns so you can keep them in the back, and AP1 helps against infantry too. Alternatively, avoid multi-meltas and put those points into Melta bombs instead, which ignore Armoured Ceramite and ultimately cost the same.
  • If you want to deal with flyers, Icarian is you only way to get Skyfire weapons. Set them up in a fortification (Skyfire emplaced weapons) and/or buy them Multi-lasers/Photon thrusters, their Djinn-sight screwing up those Jink saves. Otherwise they wont make good use of this rule because of their short ranged Lightning guns, Icarian needing them to stay still taking away their mobility advantage.
  • Against Marines take Phased-plasma fusils, terribly efficient marine-wood chippers that effectively become Assault 3 in the hands of your Relentless minions. And being Djinn-sighted, cover won't save them. To kill Terminators, however, Photon thrusters are your only option. It's the most expensive option, but 2 S6 Blind shots will make a difference, and even MCs (and Primarchs!) might feel more than a sting, all that from 48" away. They're also Lance, but at S6 no one cares, stick to your default guns for tank killing. For dealing with light infantry (T3) blobs, Multi-lasers are a very cheap way of adding much needed firepower, S6 denying their FnP on top of having long range. Irrad-cleansers are very useful too, their Fleshbane templates felling scores of poorly armoured enemies, even making tough units take a ton of saves.
  • Ferrox is an interesting upgrade, not only granting Rage, but also making your melee attacks Rending. Pretty useful given Thallax, while strong, are not as numerous as you'd like them to be, and being a Jetpack unit they're definitely going to be the ones charging the enemy. Synergizing extremely well with Ferrox are Heavy Chainblades. Their effect is only felt against T3 denying FnP or if they are poorly armoured (S5 already wounding on a 2+), but combined with Ferrox's Rending they improve your chances against 3+ saves and can even kill MCs and AV14! (9 guys shooting and charging averaging 5 lost HP, 3 of them Penetrating). Now there's your melee AND anti-armor option combined. But avoid tarpits because to make their points back these guys need to be always chargin, and they can't Sweep Advance.
  • Empyrite is only useful in Zones Mortalis and those environments where aerial deployment is forbidden. That's right, for 25pts all you get is a different way of deep striking.

• Scyllax Guardian-Automata Covenant: Please disregard everything written below, as it is all wrong. Calleb/Magos are not independent characters, so cannot join the unit. The latest rules: http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Downloads/Product/PDF/S/scyllax.pdf do not give them any ranged weapon options beyond their RNG30" AP4 boltguns.

Holy shit a second Troops choice! Just when you thought Forge World forgot about the Ordo Reductor after two and a half fucking years... They did and just gave a blanket statement that these can be taken by everyone, but it's the thought that counts, like great these are in a Reductor army. Like in their PDF they can gain a lot of attacks at S4 and their To Wound rolls of 6 still generate an extra attack that does not get an extra attack, which is all well and good, but where this shines is when you stick Calleb Decima in the unit or a Reductor with Rad Grenades (except neither of them are independent characters, so whoever wrote this article is stupid). Thanks to their Rad Furnace ability Calleb's many MC attacks now cause Instant Death to Marines at AP2 meaning he finally has a good unit to stick with while he helps your guns wreck shit, and if a Reductor with Rad Grenades is in the unit that means [Awesome|the whole squad causes instant death on MEQ's!] Rad Furnace might come back to bite you in close combat (though not in the Shooting Phase as the unit will effectively be T5) especially if a Sergeant is carrying a Power Fist (which will ID Calleb and/or a Magos and even Archmagos without a Machinator Array, and one with a Machinator array should be out fixing shit), but the benefits are certainly worth it.

• • If Assault is your ideal strategy, then load up on the Flamers and Rad-cleansers (sadly only one in four can take those). Template weapons can help whittle down a lot of blobs real fast (having that much Wall of Death doesn't hurt if you get counter-charged either).
  • If you like ranged combat, you'll want the Rotor Cannons. Sure they're weaker in strength than the Volkite Chargers but they put out double the shots of the Volkites and your regular Bolters (and being Relentless to make sure you always get 4 shots per model helps) meaning they'll wound more often than the Bolters as well as having twice the range of the Volkites. Keep in mind though they are AP6, so if you're up against any 4+ saves (Solar Auxilia come to mind) or worse you'll probably be wanting the Bolters.
  • As for the other "1-in-X can equip Y" items, they're pretty self explanatory. Graviton guns help with slowing infantry and dealing with vehicles that got too close, Plasma guns help with taking out 2+ saves (handy if a player puts their Artificer Armour Sergeant in front), and Melta guns are good for leaving at home because your opponent bought Armoured Ceramite and you have better things to deal with vehicles and 2+ saves.

Dedicated Transports

• Mechanicum Land Raider: The "Build Your Land Raider" construction kit™. Starting at 195 points you pay for a basic Land Raider chassis, which being Mechanicum comes stock with Blessed Autosimulacra, Anbaric Claw and placeholder weapons (2 Lascannons and a Heavy Bolter, none of them twin linked). Then you can choose any of the dozens of options to kit it out. You can make any and all type of pre- and post-heresy LR's, except Terminus Ultra, Ares or Achilles, and even some homebrew patterns that don't exist on any sacred blueprints (you filthy Heretek). Yes, even Crusader and Redeemers. Sadly, your own troops, being Jet Pack units don't really need transports, and become capped to only 5 models (thus only 1 special weapon), and your allies can't use them. Adding insult to injury, you can't bring standalone Land Raiders like freaking Thagmata can, but only take them as DTs. Better make up for the lost firepower by fielding the very best Land Raiders, like no others ever were.
  • You seriously have a broad range of options, though being limited in capacity you'll gravitate to make your Land Raider as tough as possible - 5 thallax can't really use assault launchers (not even Ferrox), and the Explorator Augury Web takes away yet another precious transport slot. Instead, take Armoured Ceramite and Flare shield base, and maybe Extra armour if you feel like it: A neat tactic with the Land Raider is to use it as a mobile wall for Thallax, pop out, shoot, then use your assault move to dash behind it again and grab popcorn as you watch your enemy try to deal with what effectively is AV15/AV16. As for your weapons, you'll need to decide what kind of enemies you want to target and how specialized or tactical you want your Land Raider to be (e.g. Multi-melta + Flamestorm able to tackle both Fortifications and their Marine garrisons). You can't take pintle weapons, that's heresy too.
    • Against light infantry blobs you can not only upgrade your Heavy bolter to twin-linked, but instead buy a Volkite Culverin (Heavy 4|S6|Deflagrate). Too bad it's not twin-linked. Phased plasma fusils and Graviton cannons, being TL+AP3/AP4+Dangerous-terrain they will also deliver. As for sponsons, you can mount Quad-Heavy Bolters or Flamestorm cannons absolutely free, the former being a little better for being twin-linked, having more range and being able to fire them even at Cruising speed - 12 TL shots having to hit something. This means you'll either park it and shoot or dash it forward and burn stuff, Armored Ceramite making it fear nothing.
    • Against heavy infantry, namely Marines, the best weapons are the TL Phased plasma fusil and Flamestorm cannon, all those being AP3 and wounding on 2+. Vs Terminators, grab the Plasma cannons and don't move any faster than Combat speed. None of your hull weapons shoots enought AP2 to be a menace, so aim at something else.
    • Against armored targets your hull weapon will be either the tried-and-true Lascannon (long range S9), versatile Graviton cannon (Haywire + Dangerous terrain) or fort-killer Multi-melta (forts can't get Armoured Ceramite). As for sponsons, it's either TL Lascannons or TL Multi-meltas, both hideously expensive at 40 pts. That's too much for upgrading to TL, and Multi-meltas are much cheaper on Thallax, so you might as well just keep your normal Lascannons and have a very tough tank killer.
  • Caleb can bring one as a DT, so make it resilient AND tactical. This is the one where you'll be installing that Exploratory Augury Web, rerolling your reserves or screwing the enemy's, while also gaining Scout. And if you roll Master of Mechanisms, that's 3 separate chances of regaining an HP. Not to mention he can grant Master of Destruction to any of its weapons. So you can Scout 12", Cruise Speed another 12" and fire a Tank Hunter|Sunder|Wrecker Multimelta. This doesn't mean you should ride all the way into the enemy deployment zone in turn one (which you totally can), but that you can probably fire a Multimelta at half range on something of value, maybe a fort, while being able to tank the fire you're going to recieve.

Lords of War

• Imperial Knights
  • Knight Acheron: Excellent at wrecking armour (something the current list somewhat lacks) and its flame cannon (Hellstorm|S7|AP3) makes it a pretty decent Marine killer. You do have to close in and assault the enemy to deal with the armour effectively, but its run distance combined with the fact that the current Reductor functions more like an Assault army does not make that a problem.
  • Questoris Knight Styrix: The long-ranged Marine remover, it's not such a great idea to take this over the Acheron if you want to assault the enemy (though it doesn't do that role badly) but it only becomes really awesome in a gunline. Any Marine squad it hits it'll wreck thanks to Deflagrate and AP3 and it also packs a grav gun for slowing the enemy down when they close in. The Siege claw is not too bad of a choice either, specially if you're planning on assaulting buildings, and the added Rad Cleanser is nice to have, but it's unlikely to be really useful unless against Orks or Tyranids.

• Imperial Avenger Strike Fighter: What do you mean this is a LoW?! The other Mechanicus get them as Fast Attack and we get nothing?! Though not a bad model, the Strike Fighter makes for a really shitty Lord of War (and is quite possibly the cheapest LoW ever at 150 pts). At 2 Hull Points you not only want but NEED Chaff Launchers if you want to make full use of it. Hellstrike Missiles are possibly the only choice it'll get its full use out of before it gets shot down, with bombs coming a close second. As for the other options, Missile Launchers will help thin out the Marines alongside the Avenger Bolt Cannon and can make decent tank hunters if you take Battle Servitor Control. Autocannons with Battle Sevitor Control can also work well if you're hunting rhino's and other light-mid vehicles, same with the Multi-Lasers (which are better at light vehicle hunting), though whichever option you pick don't expect this to survive long.
• Warhound Scout Titan: Do you remember this is 30K, where Imperium tech was not a tale of slow degradation? Well, the pre-heresy Warhound comes with one extra Void shield and night vision for the same price as post-heresy one. Even though 6-th edition nerfed D-strength a lot (no more +1 on damage chart), a pair of Double Barreled Turbo Laser Destructors is still the go-to loadout, but due to 30k's all-marine environment, choosing the Megabolter or Inferno cannon actually makes some sense, especially with huge blobs of said marines.
• Reaver Battle Titan: It's the Warhounds bigger, tougher, meaner and slower brother. Destroyer blast spam is still the preferable weapon loadout (especially with the points level you'll be likely using this guy at), but in 30K there's nothing wrong with choosing Gatling blaster (because fuck Marines) or a Melta cannon. Curiously it can take a Vortex support missile for a carapace weapon, you lose a lot of your average firepower, so compensate by getting something with more blasts instead of going all Strength, but the missile is capable of one-shoting any other lord of war (besides another Reaver) by removing D3 SP from super-heavies or just instakilling any other model (yes, even Primarchs) with no saves of any kind allowed. It's One use only, so use it wisely.
• Warlord Battle Titan: Probably the biggest model FW will ever make, the Warlord is a walking engine of destruction.

Legio Cybernetica Unit Analysis

The Legio Cybernetica feels more like a "full" list, including an actual non-unique HQ unit. Most importantly, you get ROBOTS! You also get Thallaxi (ported from the Ordo Reductor list) and the Myrmidons, which are basically Tech-Priests that have upgraded themselves with heavy weaponry, however, this comes at a cost. Aside from the aircraft choices, there are no vehicles, not even Dedicated Transports. It's found in Book 2: Massacre. Though the Cybernetica advantages are few, they are weighty; Magos are Characters, thus making them T6 is incredibly important, to make them immune to S10 instant death, or even Krak/Plasma/Lascannon-sniping if you don't upgrade them at all! Though Cybertheurgy isn't necessary, you may find that Celerity (ideal when VS Paragon blade wielding characters and other Automata)) is very useful and Rite of Immolation on Castellax is hilariously effective against marine blobs. 4" Coherency is quite nice too as you will almost certainly attract the ire of Artillery.

• While this list may seem to pale somewhat compared to Taghmata, however many Automata units are shared (Vorax & Thanatar namely) and other shared units function differently as far as FoC goes, the Castellax can be used to fill the minimum Troops requirement in this list whereas they cannot in the Taghmata.

HQ

• Magos Dominus" What the average neckbeard has become by the 30th millennium. Comes with a cortex controller, laspistol and power weapon base; they're essential if you want to be actually able to control your robots. Can be upgraded to an Archmagos for a better statline and Relentless (probably a good idea, since several of the cooler weapons they can take are heavy or salvo). As well as pistol weapons to replace the laspistol, you can take things like Irrad-Cleansers, Conversion Beamers and Photon Thrusters on top of it (letting you keep the extra attack it grants). Non-weapon upgrades that may come in useful include the Abeyant for an extra wound, It Will Not Die, Move Through Cover and Hardened Armour; the Machinator Array, an old-style Servo-Harness that grants two extra Power Axe (rather than Power Fist) attacks and has an Inferno Pistol rather than a plasma pistol; the Mechanicum Protectiva, which as well as being a shout-out to the old Iron Hands Iron Father grants a 4++ save, which can be improved to a 3++ with the Cyber-Familiar (which also lets you re-roll one characteristic test per player turn). They can get expensive quickly, even though a baseline Magos is only 65 points, but you can quickly make them into rock-hard beatsticks that will wreck face in both shooting and close combat. Can use Cybertheurgy powers (Ld 9, 10 for the Archmagos Dominus).
  • They can also be used as a Magos Reductor, for taking with the Ordo Reductor list (as a HQ in place of Decima), who loses the Cybertheurgy powers, but gains a variety of other rules including rad grenades.

Elites

• Enginseer Auxillia" 1 Enginseer + 4 Servo-automata for 65 points. Behaves similarly to the IG Enginseer, except you can add 1 extra Enginseer and give the Servo-automata (5 pts each) servo-harnesses (+5 pts each) to improve the repair roll of the unit. Can be used as source of Grav guns but without relentless they will suffer. Its best usage is almost certainly as a source of Nuncio-vox for your Thallax and Thanatar. Though they Cortex controllers at +15pts, it is probably better just getting a 2nd Magos and upgrading it to be tougher (and in the process, far deadlier) if your going to get that many Castellax units.

• Mymirdon Secutors: Sturdy SOBs. T5 W2 3+/5++, 120 points for 2 Secutors + 1 Lord without the weapons. Can add 7 Secutors (+35 pts each) and must equip two weapons on each (ranges from +10 pts to +20 each, doubles don't twin-link). Can fire the two weapons in a single phase at the same target, Relentless but cannot run or make a sweeping advance. Annoyingly not that great an option as they cost so many damn points: At cheapest a squad will cost 180 which will give them either a combination of 2 Maxim bolters, 2 Volkite chargers or 50/50. You may notice both are assault weapons and the squad as standard comes with a Power axe, so one could potentially use them as a sort of heavy assault trooper; a job that is immensely better performed by the Castellax automata. At an average cost of 75 per model for 2X Phased-plasma fusils you can get an extremely unpleasant marine killer! Unfortunately this is its only especially useful set-up. The only reason this anon has immediately said "there isn't much these guys do that the Thallax do better" is because the Thallax can only take a special weapon as one in every 3... but with all the goodies the Thallax get this isn't that bum a deal, that and they get the Irrad cleanser and PPF at half price.

Troops

• Tech-Thrall Adsecularis: The cheapest unit available in 30k, heck even in 40k its only outdone by Ork grots by a decimal point! (35pts for 10!) However in many ways it shows. The unit has a measly T3, BS2, WS3, LD7 with a 5+ save, but it also has FNP, S4 and Las-locks. These would be an excellent horde unit but their squad is fixed to 10. They may exchange their Las-locks for shotguns (shorter range but more likely to wound with two shots) or Heavy chainblades and while this makes them good in assault (for their points cost) you lose any ranged ability the squad has, though at BS2 you're not likely to be missing them that much. They can also take frag grenades, and considering how close these guys have to get they're almost mandatory unless you want them to be camping objectives (which for 35 points they make fantastic campers).
  • "Rites of Pure thought" can be safely skipped. Fearless doesn't help all that much in a small, easy to kill squad like this, not to mention its price, for context if you bought it alongside the heavy chainblades you've effectively doubled the cost of the unit. Thralls make excellent chaff but a poor tarpit.
  • Something to keep in mind though, These units -do not- count towards your compulsory choices, so you cannot use these to have more points for elites, but the Mechanicum troops being so great this probably wasn't being considered. Now would be a good time to point out, upgrading Thallax with augments causes them to either become fast-attack or heavy support, thus freeing slots for these loonies, so use them to take the objectives the Thallax can no longer take.
  • If you want pure numbers then ally in the Solar Auxillia, the Tech-Thralls fill up your slots too fast to be any sort of horde-style army.

• Legio Cybernetica Castellax Class Battle-Automata: A surprisingly cheap Monstrous Creature pretty much made to fuck up the Space Marine Legions (thanks to BS4, T7, W4, and armed with AP3 guns base) unless there's list-tailoring involved (like Plasma vets) it'll hold its own against nearly everything thrown at it and can put out a lot of hurt in both the Shooting (thanks to the aforementioned AP3 guns) and Assault, don't let the two Attacks fool you, charging will boost your attacks up to 4 (if you do this make sure to get the Frag Grenades). Don't let Reactor Blast make you think it's worse to group them up, it's very unlikely to do any wounds to you at all and if you're in assault it'll almost always work in your favour.
  • They may also take dual powerblades. At first AP2 rending in melee seems fantastic, but then you remember that this is a monstrous creature; thus it already has AP2 by default via smash. And with S6 its quite likely to be wounding most targets reliably anyway. The main point of this upgrade (which would explain why its relatively cheap) is to give a potential extra D3 Armour Penetration, and an additional +1 attack to your unit (since right now the shock chargers are technically one weapon). It's an upgrade to be considered, but probably should only be taken if you have spare points left over for some reason.
  • Multi-meltas are another AT option replacing the Mauler bolt cannon for no points cost. You're probably better off shoving this onto the Thallax cohorts who are way more likely to be looking at the victims backside... But it can also be used in conjunction with the other Bolt Cannons to remove any 2+ armour character (thanks to Instant Death) or Sergeant, before gunning down the rest of the squad with the Bolt cannons.
  • Darkfire cannons are a strong choice, its's better than the Melta's at taking down 2+ armour (such as terminators) and it's long range can help lay down a lot of hurt on other Monstrous Creatures or Primarchs. It also forces units to take blind tests which could really tip the balance of power when it comes to assault them (remember; monstrous creature, you have relentless). Ignore the lance factor as you're still glancing on 5's.
  • Siege wreckers are now a lot better (though that's more thanks to Smash getting worse) as they essentially allow your unit to make 4 S10 attacks against enemies instead of 1. Think carefully before taking this as it is an expensive +20 pts, and it removes a single bolter, if you care.
  • Enhanced targeting arrays vastly help when fighting MEQ's and/or if you're making a gunline, since you're ignoring their armour saves they'll almost always be making cover saves, so you want to decrease those as much as possible. It also combos well with the Darkfire cannon for sniping things off at vast distances but these costs add up quick.
  • Infra-vision grants these units night-fighting, but also makes them far more vulnerable to blind (they take the test at I1). Its a cheap upgrade (5pts each) but not really necessary unless you're taking Darkfire cannons and/or making a gunline.
  • Paragon of Metal - Oh boy. This is absolutely incredible and can turn the Castellax into a one-model-unit (literally) wrecking machine. Because it's so limited you might want to splurge on the points costs, giving this unit Siegewrecker to ensure it'll get the most out of Assault and a Darkfire cannon to blind the unit it charges or to snipe others. Cyberthautergy also becomes incredibly risky, though more potent; any failure results in Malifica.

• Mechanicum Thallax Cohort: Shock Troops sometimes gifted by the Ordo Reductor to the Legio Cybernetica, Thallax are Ogryn sized Jet Troops. They're best used against vehicles since being Jet Pack Infantry means they're super mobile, able to jump out behind a wall then shoot before flying away, and S7 plus Rending guns means they wreck light vehicles (and potentially much tougher vehicles) not to mention being S5 T5 and means they're not too shabby in combat either. Overall pretty damn good but start to cost a lot of points quickly and while they have access to great weapon options, this isn't a fantastic way of picking up a tonne of high strength weaponry (stick to Destructors or Secutors for your special weapons).
  • If you need to deal with fliers then set them up behind a fortification (so you get a Quad Gun or Lascannon), and buy them Icarian and a Multi-laser, for extra 36" S6 hits. Keep in mind Djinn-sight fucks over Jink saves so use this to your benefit instead of a Magos on the gun. Don't get a Multi-Melta, most 30K vehicles have Armoured Ceramite (immunity to the extra D6) so Rending S7 is better (and for this reason Melta Bombs can be skipped too).
  • For dealing with Marines you have Phased-Plasma Fusils; they're an interesting weapon choice, though listed as Salvo 2/3 it needs to be remembered that Thallax possess relentless, thus turning this into a Assault 3, and S6 AP3, (amazing against marines, especially with Djinn-sight wrecking their Cover Saves). Of course you may be wondering if this subverts the point of using the Thallax cohort as tank hunters and you would be right it does, you also have Castellax who are much better at this role with all of them being able to take S6 AP3 weapons. For what it's worth, based on real experience, the plasma fusil doesn't really subvert their purpose as tank hunter. The whole premise behind tasking them with tank hunting is being able to deep strike to get side/rear armor shots, in which case three S6 shots are probably as good or better as the one S8. The half-range melta bonus I found frequently to be a trap, forcing the unit too close to enemy lines; I much prefer slinking around at 18" range to shoot their guns and use the jet packs to reposition to minimize counter-attacks. Their cover reduction ability means they are just fine with trading shots head on. Frankly, if you're going to get that close to the tank, I found a charge is usually what made the kill, not the single multi-melta shot.
  • For dealing with 2+ armour You've got Photon-Thrusters, they're expensive but their main advantages are 48" S6 AP2 for making those squishier Primarchs (Like Lorgar, Conrad Curze, and Angron) and Terminators to take several invuln saves, though once again Castellax are better at this role with their Darkfire Cannons and at S6 Lance won't help at all, your regular Rending S7 Lightning Guns are better for vehicles. They can still be useful if you're charging though since they cause blind (make sure to get Ferrox for Rage and Rending). The "best" platform for this weapon are the Myrmidon Destructors, whose BS5 and Preferred Enemy really make the most out of this gun.
  • For dealing with Light Infantry you have Irrad-cleansers which are also a very interesting weapon; 2+ Fleshbane (not poison!) template pretty much guarantees a large portion of the target will get wounded but at AP5 however it could vary widely as to how effective it is afterwards; Ork, Nids, IG and even Nurgle daemons blobs? Not a problem. Legiones Astartes? It'll at least make them take lots of saves (but is worse than Phased-plasma), Solar Auxilia with their 4+? Get Ferrox (Rage/Rending) Heavy Chainblades (for Instant Death), charge and crush them.
  • Something to keep in mind is that as they fuck with Infiltrators thanks to Djinn-sight (so spread them out), and you should always keep them away from S10 AP 4+ weapons as they invalidate your armour, FnP, and three wounds.

Fast Attack

• Crusade Fleet Support Wing: Coming soon.

Heavy Support

• Myrmidon Destructors: Similar to Myrmidon Secutors, but have Preferred Enemy (Everything!), which is pretty great at BS5, though they can only pick 1 weapon. Also their models are freaking awesome. Their options are all more specialized to targeting a specific type of enemy and as such it's best to give them all one type of weapon rather than picking and choosing between several (with the exception of Irradiation Engines), give them all Volkite Culverins to watch Orks and Guard (or any 5+ save unit) cry all day long, on average without cover saves you'll actually kill more models than you shoot. Photon Thruster Cannons are good at forcing Primarchs to take a lot of saves and chip away at Terminator squads thanks to their AP2 and incredible range. Irradiation Engines are your Marine removers, giving the whole squad these is overkill (remember that Torrent weapons can be placed differently to a standard Flamer), and considering how much 2+ armour there is in 30K it's better used alongside the Photon Thruster, either to remove the 2+ Sergeant before nuking the squad, or using it to wipe the squad and exposing the Sergeant before shooting him. Lastly Conversion Beamers are only really the optimal choice if you're up against other Mechanicum where you'll likely be facing a lot of high Toughness monsters and the S6 from the Photon Thrusters doesn't quite cut it, but at that point you're better off with a Thanatar.
  • Something to keep in mind is that despite the Powerfist the Destructors don't do all that great in assault, this is because they're locked at 2 attacks base and not in a way that they can be boosted to 5 like the Castellax, they're not bad, as in they'll hold their own against tactical squads and the like, but dedicated assault units will mulch right through them.

• Thanatar Class Siege-automata Maniple: 240 a pop, but they're t8,s8 2+. Go look up a picture and see how sexy they are. They get Hellex Plasma Mortars for Instant Death on marines and wiping out Terminator Squads. They're also the only other model in your army that ca get the Paragon of Metal upgrade, because you've put so many points into this guy that you might as well make him even more durable. Searchlights are so cheap they might as well be a free upgrade, keep in mind that at T8 they should be able to deal with anything that shoots at them, and the Enhanced Targeting array helps a lot, both with its Mortar and the Twin-Linked Mauler Bolt Cannon (use the cannon second to finish off whatever the Mortar does not).
  • Something to keep in mind is that despite being S8, T8 they actually don't do assault very well, like the Destructors they have 2 attacks base and this cannot be increased like a Castellax, and at WS3 they'll be lucky to kill one model per turn, so if the enemy gets into combat with them that's 240 pts (if it's only one) that'll be sitting the entire game out.
  • Watch the fuck out for Instant Death weaponry, even more so than the rest of your high-point army. While it's rare you do not want any 240 point model (base) to suddenly die because Mortarion tele-ported right next to him then kicked his ass in assault, or if they suddenly die to that Praetor with a Combat Augment Array who made their Paragon Blade roll a six and beheaded(more like impaled its cortex) your Thanatar.

Lords of War

• Imperial Knights
  • Knight Acheron: Excellent at wrecking armour (something the current list somewhat lacks) and its flamer makes it a pretty decent Marine killer. You do have to close in and assault the enemy to deal with the armour effectively, but its run distance combined with the fact that the current Legio Cybernetica has no problem making an assault list (especially if you're going with Castellax) makes this a minor issue.
  • Questoris Knight Styrix: The long-ranged Marine remover, it's not such a great idea to take this over the Acheron if you want to assault the enemy (though it doesn't do that role badly) but it only becomes really awesome in a gunline. Any Marine squad it hits it'll wreck thanks to Deflagrate and AP3 and it also packs a grav gun for slowing the enemy down when they close in, the siege claw is not too bad of a choice either, if you're planning on having it assault with the others but passed on the Acheron, though the Rad Cleanser is unlikely to be really useful unless against Orks or Tyranids.

Taghmata Unit Analysis

Taghmata advantages lie within the immense power and variety that can be possessed by a Magos Prime, Transports are available (Dedicated for Destructors, Secutors, Enginseer Auxilia and Thallax), in the form of the Triaros, though the Land Raider is an option, Tech-priests (for free) take an Arcana which immediately makes them far more cost effective than those found within the Legio-Cybernetica and Solar Auxilia (though they have more weapon options), Ursarax and finally immensely more potent Tech-thralls.

HQ

• Magos Prime: Kind of like a Praetor. Must be upgraded with an Arcana. Independent Character! REJOICE! The warlord can get a Djinn Skein (for a hefty 2 and a half melta guns) which lets them do all kinds of delightful datamancy--things don't scatter when coming in within 6", +1BS within 6" to one unit, etc. In all cases Abeyant and cyber familiar are a must for most builds for the sheer resilience; they also don't have any conflict with other potential options. Machinator Array further increase toughness, and some additional attacks at I1. Unless you have some specific plans, this is the go-to.
  • • The Archmagos prime is a huge step up, allowing you the use of an Archimandrite and the Djinn-Skein. As well as a stat-boost it grants you relentless. You may only have one Archmagos Prime in an army - no allying yourself for additional an additional one! However this doesn't include taking an Archmagos Dominus/Reductor within an allied detachment.
  • Archimandrite: Gives all your vehicles IWND and gets +1 to reserves. Oddly, because of these two rules, Fleet-Support wings become way more interesting, and he compliments well with a Land Raider mounting a Exploratar Augury web.
  • Malagra: Chases down hereteks, so gets +1WS and Attack, as well as Preferred Enemy (characters) and Monster Hunter. This arcana should be there to help you beat characters and monstrous creatures; with the right equipment, it will. Most combat characters are likely to hit faster than you, but the properly equipped Magos prime should be able to take the damage. A Machinator-array is a good choice but things could be considered. This dude should not leave home without the 'combat augment array' from book 4, a cyber-familiar and a pair of paragon blades (one master crafted); the relic ALLOWS YOU TO COUNT ANY DICE ROLL AS A 6 once per game, announced at the start of your player turn. you have to take a toughness test at the end of your turn for each wound the model has, but you get re-rolls from the cyber-fam. no saving throws at all and no FNP either. take an abeyant for peace of mind. getting close to 270pts though...
  • Myrmidax: Makes you a Myrmidon. The most important part of this unit is the fact it has relentess; making man of the heavier weapons useable on this; namely the Conversion beamer, Graiton imploder and Photon Thruster. The Alternative method of getting relentless on this unit is the Jet-pack, which would completely cancel out those options (leaving only the Graviton gun and Phased-plasma-fusil to utilise said rule). However the previously mentioned heavier weapons also block out the useage of the Machinator array; leaving him substantially more vulnerable. This guy and the Malagra are the ones with the most diverse set of equipment choices, due to having rules encouraging the use of things that aren't the Machinator Array. Fusilade is also fucking rad allowing you to shoot more. Oh and Hatred; leave melee to the Malagra and troops though.
  • Ordinator: Gives you a bombardment attack , Tank Hunter and Wrecker. Bombardment is an Ordnance D3, 5", Pinning, S8 AP3; this is once per game so use it carefully. It could come as kind of lack-luster due to that D3 and scatter and its not Barrage so it needs LoS to the target. However its one of few Large-blast options available to you, the others being the Thanatar and Minotaur; the former is a Castellax^3 and the latter a sexy super-Leman Russ SPG, both doing this job so much better and can make use of the Djeinn Skein Rule. Tank Hunter isn't too hot considering you have lots of stuff that is good against vehicles anyway, Wrecker is interesting but limited, allowing rerolls of Armour Penetration against immobile structures and adds +1 to the results table; these rules benefit all of its attack so bombardment also benefits from this. Potentially, could be cool, but you're probably better off taking a Thanator or an allied choice if you're looking for some hot heavy Ordnance. A poor choice of Archmagos, a strong consider for regular.
  • Lachrimallus: Forces you to take a unit of thralls. However, Thrall units come back from the dead on a 5+ and into reserves. Don't forget the 5+ feel no pain too; given a machinator array, abeyant and cyber familiar you end up with a t6 character with 4 wounds who has it will not die who has a 3++ save and feel no pain. This guy won't go down quickly, if you're taking an Archimandrites or sizeable numbers of well equipped Thralls, take this guy. The Former allowing you to bring those Thralls back on quicker, and the latter meaning they return into reserve for free, potentially maximising cost effectiveness. Also notice unlike the Archimandrite, this guy does not have to be the warlord to use his bonus.
  • Macrotek: Reroll battlesmiths for your dude and Auxilia are troops. Also an extra fortification. A combination I have found to work pretty well is giving a Macrotek a cortex controller and machinator array and sticking him in a unit of Castellax. Makes the Castellax a fairly durable unit as he can repair one on a 3+. See page 234 of Extermination: Deal with THAT.
  • These sphincters are ridiculously durable, if properly built, can tie/beat Smashbubbler(link?)(Link or it didn't happen). http://boards.4chan.org/tg/thread/36435186/horus-heresy-conquest#p36450691

• Magos Dominus: Just like before, you need these assholes to keep your robots under control (unless you take Auxilia). NOT ICs and does not have the Archmagos upgrade available; as a result they are more dangerous to use than the LC-Archmagos; it may be better to have an engineseer or give the Prime a cortex controller if you're looking for direct robot control. Just to reclarify; Cortex control isn't necessary to keep Battle-Automata fighting, its just needed for them to do it precisely; the robots won't rip out their servos like Nids rip out each others vestigial stomachs.

• Magos Caleb Decima: An all-rounded character that also comes with a rule called Curse of the Omnissiah which will cripple anything less than a Titan. That said - he doesn't have relentless and the Mechanicum don't have access to a transport with fire points. His Curse of the Omnissiah attack is HEAVY 2d6 with 'gets hot' which means Caleb could very well die while waiting around for a worthy target for it and he might burn himself trying to use it (though that's incredibly unlikely). Caleb actually does significantly better in the Taghmata than the Reductor as you can put him in a group of Castellax (as he's not an IC) and optionally give him an Abeyant. He'll buff the squad (especially if one has a Multi-Melta) and his 5 S6 AP2 attacks fit perfectly well with the squads S6 AP2 attacks. The Castellax T7 also protects him long enough to use Curse of the Omnissiah too.

• Archmagos Inar Satarael: Monstrous creature sized Magos with a shield that can reflect shots back at the shooter and teleports home on a 3+ if he would otherwise die. Comes with a cortex controller and is an Archimadrite. If you're taking a lot of robots and who isn't, he'd be worth your time if you wanted a fully kitted-out Archmagos, as with his special rules he ends up being better than the generic version overall though he still costs more than one of your super-heavy options and with a 3+ invulnerable save he costs just 30 pts less than a Questoris Knight.

• Archmagos Draykavac: The first of the Dark Mechanicum. A scary bastard with a Paragon Blade, graviton gun, Djinn-Skein, and a Machinator array, gives all friendly Walkers, SH walkers and MCs +1 on their charges and sweeps, and a WT that gives all units within 3" of an objective Preferred Enemy (Infantry). He's rather tough and has some nice tools, but his weirdest tool is his Liquefractor: a special weapon he can use in place of his normal combat attacks. It's an autohit on Initiative step 1, which inflicts "2d6 - T of the target" wounds with AP 2 to a single chosen model in base contact with Draykavac. If he's against vehicles, then they take (Armour Value(Rounding up))/2 minus 2d6 = Penetration hits. This weapon might be really scary, but doing so requires you leaving the protection of your tools, which might be helped by getting an Abeyant. Otherwise, use him like a basic Magos Prime.

Elites

• Techpriest Auxillia: Must choose an Arcana. They can also take Triaros as a dedicated transport.
  • Enginseer gives them battlesmith and Servo Arms, their servitors get the support rule.
  • Lacyraemarta: FNP 5+ and +1 to Adsecularis FNP within 6". So they're thrallmasters. Sexy.
    • I've seen some people online arguing that it's +1 to the Adsecularis FnP PER TECHPRIEST. While I'm not entirely convinced of this interpretation, the thought of Tech-Thralls with 2+ FnP is both hilarious and terrifying. Expect your opponent to fire one volley at the Adsecularis before refocusing on the techpriests like they were Bloodthristers.
  • Reductor: Servo arms (Note, they don't loose Battlesmith), everyone gets Tank Hunters and Wrecker! They can also trade in their servo arms for Conversion Beamers or Gravitorn Imploders for +25
  • Additionally this unit comes with Servo-automata, whom are particularly tough and won't be found wanting in other areas given the right equipment. You may take up to 8 of these with a single unit. Normally they are only equipped with Close-combat weapons, but you will most likely give then a Las-lock as its only 1 point a piece.
    • Alternatively they may act as something of a Guardsmen Heavy/special weapons squad. Flamers and Maxim bolters for close range. Heavy Bolters and Rotor cannons for long range blob squashing. Multi-meltas for tank busting anything that looks it will munch up your Automata or Adsecularis.
    • If you feel uncomfortable with their mediocre BS, try and have a Cyber-occularis near them to improve it.

• Myrmidon Secutors- As before but can take a Triaros, which can give them a substantial edge over the Destructors they used to some what pale too, now that they can actually be put into their effective range.
  • The primary problem with Secutors is the very short range - your longest and most expensive option is the Phased-plasma fusil, which is effectively identical (minus pinning) to the Mauler Boltcannon, which if you have a squad of Secutors, is already atop the Triaros, is your go-to for Castellax and more reasonably priced (excluding Ablatives) on the Thallax Cohort, who don't need a transport to get them into battle. If you want lots of AP3, take lots of Castellax - you'll get much more out of it.
  • Another weapon that should be dropped faster than a bad Harem Anime starring a bland MC is the Maxim bolter. It has the same cost as a Volkite Charger, with a point less strength, 3 fewer inches it makes for a bad weapon choice as much as it would a pornstar. Sure it fires 3 shots rather than 2 but that lower strength means you'll do worse against most targets.
  • Graviton Guns are vital - haywire is lovely and spewing around diff/dangerous terrain can actually help protect you from assault; Secutors are hardly bad in melee but its something of a waste. Give it a thought, it can be extremely useful coupled with more harmful weapons.
  • Irrad cleansers would be a strong option; Fleshbane and Rad-phage template is good, but the Myrmidons bring mutha-fuckin' Irrad engines to the table, which are much better than any number of cleansers.
    • Overall, you'll probably find yourself taking Volkite-Chargers for some good dice-spamming potential, with a strong likely hood of wounding, backed up by at least one Graviton Gun to help slow down the enemy at such short ranges, alongside lovely glancing hits. It's really the worst unit in the codex, Tech priests have utility at least. Everything they do is better done by another unit, Destructors in particular who also have Preferred enemy everything to boot.
    • The only thing up for debate is anti-tank, with Graviton guns they can glance most vehicles to death. If you wanted to score a likely a kill on almost any vehicle its 210 points for 6 Graviton guns and the Secutors (345 for the inevitable transport). They will not be found doing anything else but ripping apart vehicles hilariously fast. Thallax Cohorts with Multi-melta can be used to boot up the field and rear-armour vehicles, or claim objectives etc. Castellax with Multi-meltas can be pushed into melee, and likely take flamer(s) for Anti-infantry. Tech-priests auxilia can bring 8 Multi-meltas for 205 points, with tank hunter. Secutors do have a much lower chance of missing through the virtue of BS5 and blast weaponry though.
      • But remembered Armoured Ceramite will protect you from Meltas - jack all against Haywire.

Troops

• Mechanicum Thallax Cohort: Shock Troops initially gifted by Ordo Reductor, but became much more widespread among out-lying Forgeworlds as they were comparatively easier to amass compared to Battle-Automata. They're best used against vehicles since being Jet Pack Infantry means they're super mobile, able to jump out behind a wall then shoot before flying away, and S7 plus Rending guns means they wreck light vehicles (and potentially much tougher vehicles) not to mention being S5 T5 and means they're not too shabby in combat either. Overall pretty damn good but start to cost a lot of points quickly and while they have access to great weapon options, this isn't a fantastic way of picking up a tonne of high strength weaponry (stick to Myrmidon Destructors or Secutors for your special weapons).
  • For extra options for dealing with Vehicles, buy them Destructor (Tank Hunters) to make sure you get that rending roll or Empyrite to deep-strike them behind/beside tanks, in which case you should either stack up on models in one unit or multiple Deep-strikers as they're likely to get shot to hell after they arrive (flying away only carries you so far). If you need to deal with fliers then set them up behind a fortification (so you get a Quad Gun or Lascannon), and buy them Icarian and a Multi-laser, for extra 36" S6 hits. Keep in mind Djinn-sight fucks over Jink saves so use this to your benefit instead of a Magos on the gun. Don't get a Multi-Melta, most 30K vehicles have Armoured Ceramite (immunity to the extra D6) so Rending S7 is better (Don't forget melta bombs DO still work on ceramite, they negate the ceramite).
  • For dealing with Marines you have Phased-Plasma Fusils; they're an interesting weapon choice, though listed as Salvo 2/3 it needs to be remembered that Thallax possess relentless, thus turning this into a Assault 3, and S6 AP3, (amazing against marines, especially with Djinn-sight wrecking their Cover Saves). Of course you may be wondering if this subverts the point of using the Thallax cohort as tank hunters and you would be right it does, you also have Castellax who are much better at this role with all of them being able to take S6 AP3 weapons.
  • For dealing with 2+ armour You've got Photon-Thrusters, they're expensive but their main advantages are 48" S6 AP2 for making those squishier Primarchs (Like Lorgar, Conrad Curze, and Angron) and Terminators to take several invuln saves, though once again Castellax are better at this role with their Darkfire Cannons and at S6 Lance won't help at all, your regular Rending S7 Lightning Guns are better for vehicles. They can still be useful if you're charging though since they cause blind.
  • For dealing with Light Infantry you have Irrad-cleansers which are also a very interesting weapon; 2+ Fleshbane (not poison!) template pretty much guarantees a large portion of the target will get wounded, it also handily goes with Empyrite for deep-striking, flaming, then flying away (since you cannot assault) but at AP5 however it could vary widely as to how effective it is afterwards; Ork, Nids, IG and even Nurgle daemons blobs? Not a problem. Legiones Astartes? It'll at least make them take lots of saves (but is worse than Phased-plasma), Solar Auxilia with their 4+? Get Heavy Chainblades (for Instant Death), charge and crush them.
  • Something to keep in mind is that as they fuck with Infiltrators thanks to Djinn-sight (so spread them out), and you should always keep them away from S10 AP 4+ weapons as they invalidate your armour, FnP, and three wounds.

• Adsecularis Covenant--Thralls, From suck to stellar. No vehicle, but they can now go up to 20 Thralls, which is a no-brainer. They can choose between Laslocks, Mitralocks and Heavy chainblades, you generally want the Laslocks. They now have a variety of upgrades that effect the entire squad, and are more cost effective at maximum size!
  • Rite of Pure thought grants them fearless, but removes Overwatch and sweeping advance. Few things discourage taking Fearless, especially with a tarpit like this, if you're taking Thralls, give them this.
  • Induction chargers make both Mitra-locks and Las-locks assault 2. Generally this is more compensation for BS2 than it is for getting extra hits, however plop in a Cyber-occularis and have fun.
  • Carapace armour, as it says on the tin. Great if you intend to shove them in the face of enemy line infantry but Heavy bolters will rip them apart.
  • Revenant Alchemistry, SPOOKY, upgrades your FNP to 5+ and grants hatred, slow&purposeful is almost a joke draw back. Prop up Tech-priests behind them and you're gonna have 4+ FNP. Autocannons will mitigate this, but even 30k can only back so many autocannons!
  • Heavy Chainblades, although called Heavy Chainswords in the core rulebook. In essence, it's a two-handed melee weapon that gives +2S and AP5. Your Adsecularis start at S4, so that means S6, which means that they will severely hurt anything that doesn't decimate them before they get to strike.
    • Surprisingly durable tarpits packing a mean punch if properly equipped(RoPT+Carapace+RA+Heavy Chainblades). You'll have to convert/kitbash your own, and while they have the same WS and I as Tau Firewarriors(a meager 2), Hate(everything) and hitting at S6 means that no one wants to see them swing at their models. Should be quite efficient against big blobs of Ork Boyz, hitting them at 4+ rerolling, wounding on 2+ and AP5 while taking advantage of their 4+ save and Feel no Pain which statistically speaking is as good as 3+ against anything which doesn't cause them Instant Death or ignores their armor. As an anecdote, I once knocked 4 wounds off a Bloodthirster with a unit of 20, and would have finished it if it hadn't been for a unit of deepstriking Bloodletters saving their bosses bacon.

• Castellax Class Battle-automata--Now they can no longer be compulsory troops choices. Tragic. But they are still scoring. And don't forget they are some of the best monstrous creature hunter units in the whole game! So almost an auto include! See the other entry on Castellax if you aren't sure how to equip your murderous do-it-all deathstars.

• Scyllax Guardian-automata Covenant: The newest unit to grace our tabletop. Comes in at 155 Points for 4x 2W T5 Troops that are fearless if within 24" of a cortex Controller. An okay all rounder unit that would be great to stick your magos in, but their rules are currently experimental so expect them to change next book, as for right now they have with Move through cover (so your Magos doesn't need an Abeyant as much), Relentless, Night Vision, Rad Furnace (-1 Toughness to ALL units except Scyllax in combat with them, which might hurt your Magos, and also allowing him to be ID'd easier, ironic for a bodyguard unit) and Mechandrite Combat array (wounds of 6 generate extra hit, i.e. lesser deflagarate) and Carapace Armour all for 155 Points. For their shooting they're better than others like Castellax, Adsecularis and Thallax against Solar Auxilia as their 30" Bolters are AP4 (as opposed to fewer shots or AP5-6), but not as good as the Castellax for Marine killing (as a Tactical squad not only outnumbers them more than 2/1, costs 5 points less and they'll have a 3+ save as opposed to the 4+ of the Scyllax). They might make okay character killers as they can trade all their attacks for a single S6 AP2 Unwieldy attack, which coupled with their Rad Furnace will Instant Death any marine that is unlucky enough to not make their invul save, but Castellax with Siege Wreckers could already do this, be harder to kill in return, though they will cost a bit more. Once again they're better off against guard or the Auxilia where their regular attacks will ID characters.
  • Do note that you CANNOT use Cybertheurgy on them as they do not have a Cybernetica Cortex, the only Automata in any Mechanicum army without this rule.

Dedicated Transport

• Triaros Armoured Conveyer-- Dune Train Not quite a CRASSUS, but close. 14/12/12, 4HP The thing comes standard with a flare shield for all that -1 goodness. It also gets a shock ram giving you AV15 on your front when ramming and does haywire damage. the shock ram also inflicts d6 S6 AP5 hits on any unit it tank shocks in addition to resolving the tank shock and the shock ram doesn't count as a weapon so can never be removed by weapon destroyed results on the damage chart. Carries 20 and re-rolls failed dangerous terrain tests. Give it lesser IWND for 5 points. 135. Awesome. Great for getting things close. The Spice must flow.
  • Volkite Sentinels are a subtle, but potent feature. Essentially they are two Volkite chargers than may target independently of the Triaros itself (and presumably the other Volkite weapon); these can be used to take out "Chaff" units (exceptionally important if you're using this in 40k).
  • You'll generally give this unit the noble task of transporting the Omnissiah's servants. Myrmidons of both kinds are the most obvious use, it's effectively mandatory for Secutors as they all possess short range weapons, and with the most expensive weapon option for Secutors being the one with AP3 you will greatly appreciate the Twin-linked Mauler Boltcannon. Destructors too can benefit from this, the Graviton Imploder and Irrad Engine to be specific. Another possible useage is Tech-priests. Not to bad as almost any configuration of the Tech-priest is cheaper than Myrmidons; 8 Flamer servitors could be considered a very light version of the Irrad-Engine. The description indicates that it is fair game to use the FNP buff while inside the vehicle; take a minimum sized Tech-priest squad, 15 Thralls, load em up and maybe have some fun...? Its a stretch that one.

Fast Attack

• Ursarax Cohort: These are Thallax's less agile but stronger siblings, with twin lightning claws (or Power fists) and Ironman chest lasers. the Volkite Incinerator isn't too great in CC, as four attacks at S10 almost always beats ONE S6 instant death attack (even if the target is T6) but if you get locked in multiple rounds it can be okay enough against T6 models. Having said that, swapping twin lightning claws for powerfists might seem like a good general idea since you're Initiative 2, but if you're fighting against Marines, lightning claws at S5 will put out more wounds than fists at S10.
  • Also the twin-powerfists are 10 points each: ideally, if you're taking a large squad, nestle a couple into a squad to provide some tough tin-can opening power.
  • A squad of 9 will put out (excluding HoW) 36 attacks. This costs 455 points and can be hillariously powerful against anything that isn't going to launch S10 at you or is packing sizeable numbers of Autocannons. Toss in say 3 Powerfists and you'll be good to against pretty much anything.
• Vorax Class Battle-Automata--Quicker and lighter (4+ armour and 3W, but I4 and lacking an invulnerable save) than the Castellax, they get fleet and scout. They also come standard with a pair of rotor cannons, a lightning gun, and powerblades. (Can swap the lightning for an irrad cleanser) Outflank these sphincters and let their automatic programming take care of the rest. Unfortunately, 4+ armor, 3 wounds at t6 and no invuln makes them far too susceptible to krak grenades to be viable. With programmed behavior meaning they have to charge, keep these sick-looking mantis bots in single units of 1, to use as a distraction unit.
  • One thing to consider with them, now that they have models, is that they simply look great with their mantis-like predatory theme. Their smaller size and velociraptor-like silouette make exploiting cover far easier too. And they are far cheaper(cash-wise) than the Castellax, which is nice.
• Planes
• Tarantulas

Heavy Support

• Thanatar Class Siege-Automata--240 a pop, but they're t8,s8 2+. They get Hellex Plasma Mortars, which are ordnance barrage str 8 ap2 plasma blasts which force rerolls on cover saves. Go look up a picture and see how sexy they are. If you want a moronic looking list, take them in a full-size unit of five. If you are a normal person, take the option below.
  • Want to see your enemies cry ? Take one Thanatar and give him Paragon of Metal. He'll never freaking die. BS5 and -1 to enemy cover from Advanced Targeting will fit well too.
  • Got too much time, too much money, and too many Terminators running at you to the point photon weapons just don't cut it? Take a unit of more than 1, take Advanced Targeting, now here's the important part; Cyber-Occulari. You are now BS6, and likely able to use the Occulari LoS, the result is a unit that keep its shots in a very tight grouping. Beware though; a cortex controller will likely be needed.

• Thanatar-Calix Class Siege-Automata--(based on experimental rules) This is the guy who puts the "Siege" in "Siege-Automata". the mortar is replaced with an S10 Lascannon (yes, a single, one-shot-per-turn lascannon, unfortunately) but this Thanatar gets an additional Graviton Ram in return, which can be used in shooting as a moderately effective template weapon with Haywire or in melee as an S10 AP 1 armorbane weapon which gets bumped up to str D against buildings(!) However this guy is a whopping 295 points, so make those potential str D hits happen or you're not getting those points back.
  • Never, ever let him be assaulted by infantry (and don't be dumb enough to charge infantry with him). The template weapon forces a strength test instead of rolling to wound - in HH most infantry are S4, so you're going to need 5+ to wound and they can still make 3+ saves. However, against weak tarpit units with low strength, it could work quite well - morale checks caused my this template are taken with a Ld -2 modifier, so you can scare off potential tarpits. a S10 AP1 close combat attack is mostly wasted on infantry, being not at all any more effective than the base S8 AP2 that a normal Thanatar would have.
  • This Thanatar is a death sentence against vehicles. If it can get close enough, a single turn can see it firing a S10 AP2 Lascannon and a haywire template, then charging in with 3 S10 AP1 Armorbane hits in melee. (Don't charge transports unless you've got something else to engage the occupants with in CC - it can't be stressed enough how tremendous a waste this guy is in melee with infantry.)
  • Where this guy really takes the spotlight is in attacks on Fortifications. against those, it can do the same as to vehicles (minus the haywire) but DEALING STRENGTH D HITS instead of S10. With the monstrous number of hull points fortifications can have (looking at you, Primus Redoubt) this can be a huge help, and really, that strength D hit is where your points are going to, so you'd better make some of those hits.
  • This guy is 300 points. he moves 6 inches a turn and cannot run. his target is a building on the other side of the table. If you plan to get this guy in your army at all, this guy will have to be the Paragon of Metal. First off, he's going to draw a lot of fire - no, really, a lot. at T8 W4 2+5++, he can tank a good number of hits but you'll want the chance to regenerate because there is a solid chance he may never reach his target otherwise. Secondly, this guy is going to be headed straight for the toughest part of your opposing forces, and while he's tough as nails, most cortex-controlling units don't can't withstand nearly as much. An enemy could easily kill this Thanatar's controller and drink your tears as the Thanatar runs off to charge at infantry. While most automata can function reasonably well without cortex control (either they stay way back and don't get distracted by nearby enemies, or it doesn't matter because you want them to attack whatever's convenient), a focused, controlled beeline to fortifications is what this guy needs to do, and if you lose control of him that's essentially 300 points down the drain.
    • Plop a group of equally slow Tech-Thralls in front to screen him from charges. Plop a unit of what ever Tech-Priest Auxilia you feel like (Any other combos will actually do alright) behind it and get ready to make battlesmith rolls.
    • Annoyingly this thing suffers a notably less-chronic case of "Secutor Syndrome" in that it has a cousin similarly priced (once kitted out) but X times more effective: Knight Errants. Of course those are LoW's and this isn't. The Calix has some edges other it: the fantastic range of its S10 Lascannon and the haywire template will likely knock off Hullpoints; both however will eventually need to make the crunch and the Errant can actually deal with a multitude of issues and moves a shitload faster... though its Meltacannon is subject to Armoured Ceramite. Nor will it be nearly as harmed by Flare-shielding as it has no-blast weapons; there for the Errant will have to rely almost entirely on its melee, where as this doesn't have too. Issue is though most of the time you can "rely on the D", especially when it travels so damned fast.

• Krios Battle Tank Squadron--Farmer Joe's angry Tractor. These sex bots are 13/12/10 3HP with a flare shield. Aww crispy biscuts yeeeaaah!! They're fast and can be taken in squadrons of 3. Start off at 125, and can take a Pulsar Fusil for 25 extra points. (So turn your s7 ap3 large blast marine eating lightning gun into a a9 ap2 ordnance 4 tank killer. Can be taken in mixed.) They also have Autosimulacra and access to Anbaric claws and Volkite sentinels. If you felt the need to rush your tanks in and make them more deadly. With Mauler Bolt Cannons, Irradiation engines, the 3-shot battlecannon on the paladin, and more anti-MEQ, I would almost always go Venator.

• Mechanicum Land Raider--Same Build Your Own Landraider as before. FAQ for Betrayal mentions that the Special Rules box out for Blessed Autosimulacra is unfortunately missing from the page in error.
  • Add the following: Blessed Autosimulacra: If the vehicle has suffered Hull Point damage, at the end of the owning player’s turn roll a D6. On a result of a 6, one lost Hull Point is restored.

• Myrmidon Destructors--Can now take a Photon Thruster. They also can take a Triaros for delivering RAD-PHAGE. Note that their grav gun has been replaced by a Graviton Imploder.
  • It's a toss up between three things typically for these guys; Volkite Culverins, Irrad-Engines and Photon-thrusters. None of these are hardly lacking in Strength, Volkite and Irrad are both very capable of dumping alot of wounds on a target, but Photon-thrusters are capable of taking on vehicles and TEQ's, both the Volkite and Photon are long range as heck, but Transportation negates this, though it raises the squads cost. Graviton Imploder is another great anti-TEQ option, a unit of 3 capable of scoring 12 wounds quite readily, but they'll need transportation.
    • An important question to ask, especially within a Taghmata list is "why isn't an Enginseer squad doing this?" - hence you will often not have a Conversion beamer Destructor squad unless you're absolutely terrified of scatter and want to reroll to wound.
    • Heavily consider putting your Magos in with this squad; it will grant Preferred Enemy.

Lords of War

• Imperial Knights
  • Knight Errant: Identical to GW rules, minus the ability to mount additional Heavy Stubbers
  • Knight Paladin: See above
  • Knight Lancer: A good character and monster killer, though its cost is right up there with the Primarchs, it'll take on nearly everything you send it at and come out on top aside from the aforementioned Primarchs (and it can still do very well against them if they're Init 1 or S6-7 since it's Strength D).
  • Knight Acheron: Just as excellent at wrecking armour as the Castigator is at wrecking infantry, though in the Taghmata dealing with armour isn't that much of an issue, and you have to close in and assault the enemy to deal with the armour effectively, leaving the Acheron a giant target. It also doesn't benefit from many of the bonuses you can offer, isn't as good at character/monster hunting as the Lancer (thanks to no close combat Invuln save) and the Styrix has better guns to deal with Infantry. It isn't a bad choice on its own but your own units can usually do what it does just as well, if not better.
  • Questoris Knight Styrix: The long-ranged Marine remover, it's not such a great idea to take this over the other knights if you want to assault the enemy (admittedly a non-competitive way of playing) but it can be awesome in a gunline. Any Marine squad it hits it'll wreck thanks to Deflagrate and AP3, boost it with a Djinn-skein and mathematically it kills 6.365 Marines with that one gun per turn. It also packs a grav gun for slowing the enemy down when they close in, though the siege claw can be skipped as you have other ways of dealing with Armour and the Rad Cleanser is unlikely to make its points back unless you're up against Tyranids or Orks.

• Legion Falchion

• Minotaur Artillery Tank: A very odd unit in this list, basically the vehicle version of a Thanatar but not quite as good in 30K. Cannot be given upgrade Armoured Ceramite (so it's vulnerable to any Deepstriking unit with a melta) and its gun is AP3, which isn't that great considering how much 2+ armour (and terminators) will be running around. If you're up against a non-30K army it can do better then a Thanatar since it's blast is larger and it only costs a bit more (it'll destroy Tyranids for example) so it depends what you're up against and if you want to list tailor.

• Warhound Scout Titan: The same Titan as the Ordo Reductor, it has one extra void shield and night vision for the same price as post-heresy one Warhound, Even though 6-th edition nerfed D-strength a lot (no more +1 on damage chart), take a DB TLD for dealing with Terminators and Characters, and a Vulcan Mega-Bolter boosted with a Djinn-skein for the squads as on average against 3+ marines you'll kill 10.416 Marines per use of the Mega-Bolter.

• Reaver Battle Titan: Again, The same Titan as the Ordo Reductor, it's the Warhounds bigger, tougher, meaner and slower brother. Destroyer blast spam is still the preferable weapon loadout (especially with the points level you'll be likely using this guy at), but in 30K there's nothing wrong with choosing Gatling blaster (because fuck Marines) or a Melta cannon. Curiously it can take a Vortex support missile for a carapace weapon, you lose a lot of your average firepower, so compensate by getting something with more blasts instead of going all Strength, but the missile is capable of one-shoting any other lord of war (besides another Reaver) by removing D3 SP from super-heavies or just insta-killing any other model (yes, even Primarchs) with no saves of any kind allowed, but it is one use only, so use it wisely.

• Warlord Battle Titan:2750 pts for quite possibly the hardest damned motherfucker out there; 30 HP, 15/15/14, 5+ Invuln, haywire immunity, Armoured ceramite and 6 void shields and it pretty much ignores anything in melee besides other titans. It is bristling with with Anti-aircraft firepower atop it with its Ardex (Essentially Cognis) Mauler boltcannons and TL Lascannons. Now some notes on the meat of it!
  • If you're taking this to spew D weapons, you're in for a disappointment as 2850pts total would "only" fire 8 D blasts; 2 Belicosa volcano's and 2 Reaver Laser blasters, though the former weapon will produce 2 10" reroll 1's on D table. If you wanna spam D, take a Reaver, it will work out cheaper in every single way.
  • What this is good for however, is abusing its World Burner rule to turn the battle field into a charnel house where only true Titans, the lucky, and those with Flare shields may live to wretch in the ashen pork world that was left behind. This rule lets you use your Blast based weapons (all bar melee effectively) against whatever the hell you want: Baptise them in fire!
    • Of course, you'll need the right tools for the job. Standard are two aforementioned Belicosa pattern volcano cannons, a very good all round choice and in the event you don't have worthy backup against other Titans, stick with these. Other arm mounted weapons include Sunfury plasma annhilators, PW4, Apoc barrage, force rerolls on cover, S9 AP means anything without Flare shields will get screwed over real fast. Mori-Quake cannons are similar to the regular quake cannons (D to 9 to 6), at AP3 they're kinda lackluster but it makes for it via making units move far slower (Half movement, no running/flatout/charge, all movement is dangerous terrain for next turn), a Direct hit with this will likely heavily delay a Spartan from reaching its destination in time, which could be extremely important. Saturnyne lascutters are fun, they double as a melee and hellstorm weapon. The Latter is S9, AP2 Instant death, making it perfect for mulching Mechanicum, the former it will possess a D, Machine Destroyer (Reroll 1's on D table) and ID again, which is relevant against Gargantuan creatures (Each D wound scored will inflict D3 wounds.). Next up is the Arioch Power Claw: D Melee, +1 attack Machine destroyer; at least you'll look rad. This then just leaves the Macro-gatling blaster looking a bit out in the woods: PW6, 5", Pinning at S10 AP3. It's really for just completely removing Marines from the board.
    • Next up are the Assortment of carapace weapons (minimum 24"). These are all taken in a pair (the Ardex weapons cannot be changed). Standard are two Apocalypse Launchers, shrug. Then come in the DL-Turbolasers, TL-Vulcan Mega bolters, and Titan Plasma blastguns, for free. The Reaver-greade weapons are all 100 pts: Laser blasters, Meltacannons (which will look real fucking stupid with all this AC around) and Gatling Blasters. Then some uniques come in: 2XVortex missile banks for 150 pts, which essentially let you fling out a total of 4 of these missiles throughout the game (its the "Eh" 40k version). And 75 pts Incinerator missile banks: PW10, No cover, Apoc Barrage, one use each at S6 AP3; for when all the marines must die turn 1.
    • You can probably tell now, the resultant purpose of these Titans is destroy any supporting forces as quickly as possible, before destroying other super heavies in a barrage of unrelenting firepower across a number of turns and slugging it out, where as the Reaver is probably bust blasting down enemy super heavies. In either case you may wish to sit down, take a look at your bank-statements and wonder how on earth you are going to be reasonably transporting this to the secret Drug-Cartel hideout where the fight each other with Titan legions.

Available to all

In Tempest, they decided rather have the occasional unit fall through the Seive, to just state all Mechanicum factions get these.

Troops

• Scyllax Guardian-Automata Covenant: Super-combat Servo skulls, in short. They got quite buff from their .pdf debut. 155 points gets you 4, with up to 12 more for 35 pts each. They possesses a typical Mechanicus statline, being pretty damn hardy for their points, and peforming "meh" in Melee (special rules not withstanding). They can now swap their lovely AP4, 30" Bolters for Rotor cannons, Flamer and Volkite chargers, with one in every 4 ale to equip Meltaguns, Graviton guns, Rad-cleansers and Plasma guns; these would all be great if you weren't already so used to using Thallax, but carrying on. In melee, despite their WS3 and I3, they are going to be very concerning for marine players. They possess a combat array, with each wound scored on a 6 immediately generating another attack (that doesnt benefit from this rule), cute but niche, but this has the rule "dismemberment", which is very good: They may exchange all their attacks for +3 Str (S7 total) at AP2 unwieldy, pretty neat right? But, wait, whats this? Rad Furnace! -1 T for units locked in combat, they better be Salamanders or they're going to be toast! Additionally Rad-phage and poison weapons wound only a 6.
  • These do not benefit from Cybenetica Cortex. In essence they're an alternative to Thallax, they also don't need Cortex-controllers, just a model with Battlesmith 24" from them (or Cybertheurgy) and they'll be fearless.

Elites

• Domitar Class Battle-Automata Maniple:Hot digly-dang an Elite choice to compete with Tech-Priest auxilia! 175 pts gets you a very intriguing option indeed; melee automata, that seems to be geared towards fighting other automata. It possesses a good WS of 4 at I3 and A3, which combined with S7, T7 make this a potent machine indeed, and with 3+/5(6melee)++ at 4 wounds, a hardy one too. Shooting wise this may be the weakest, armed with a missile launcher with Krak and Ignis missiles (the latter S5, 3" blast ignores cover... but AP6) and can purchase flak missiles. This motherfucker then ups it game to earn its 175 points really fucking quick: Two Graviton hammers (hence A3): S10, AP2, Concussive, Wrecker. These things will wound any current automata on a 2+ and rip their shit apart something rotten, and then do it all over again. Oh whats that, you didn't quite land your own charge? Not to worry, your opponent is making a disordered charge and with Crusader you'll be dictating when your charges happen quite often. Oh and you get D3 hammer of wrath hits per model (roll once and multiply by number of models)
  • Use these well, as they are extremely expensive. They can be squaded up to 5 models. These suffer almost as bad as Thanatar when tarpitted (Paragon of metal doesn't help out to much here). Interestingly Frag-nades are purchased at 5 pts per model as are Flak missiles (which is more of a "well if you say so" case). These are ideally used against the enemies most valuable assets: Tanks, Dreadnoughts, smaller terminator units and HQ. These are the ideal candidate for Paragorn of metal as they function very well on their own, but squads would likely perform well, but are to expensive.
  • These things will likely tear apart Thanatars and crush Vorax (though beware of their I4); Castellax it really depends. At I3 these things are vulnerable to a blinding from Darkfire cannons, and at 3+ vulnerable to barrage of Mauler boltcannons. Once they reach melee you'll likely do some serious damage, return attacks are going to depend on what the Castellax are equipped with: Shock Chargers will either struggle to wound you, or struggle to hit you; should the successfully do either then you're fighting at initiative and you can expect a dead Automata next turn (hopefully having taken down some with him). Should they have brought Siege-wreckers then you're going to be fighting a budget version of yourself with fewer attacks; bare in mind because of the budget, he likely has friends (2 Castellax with Siege wreckers are about as expensive a Paragon of Metal Domitar) and you'll be relying on your higher WS to carry the day (A3+D3 attacks).
  • Again, don't attack tarpits with this thing, especially Tech-thralls; getting hacked apart by a large mob of S6 fearless goons whose entire squad costs probably less than half your model is embarrassing.

Heavy Support

• Thanatar Calix: Didn't get any changes from the .pdf; didnt even get its Sollex buffed to a Neutron beam. Essentially this thing is very good at opening up Fortifications and high-cost vehicles. See above for the great tower of text.

• Thanatar Cynis: Once upon a time, the Magos of Estaban III were wondering if they could make cheaper Thanatars; they failed and Ryza was really upset. It results in the marginally more expensive, smaller squad size, the Thanatar-Cynis; you ever wanted a giant plasma shotgun? You now have it! You were wondering where that Gets Hot was? It's here! This baby has two Plasma Ejectors: 18" (It's Mechanicus), S8, Ap2, Heavy 2, 3" blast, Plasma wave (with gets hot)... and a Mauler-Bolt cannon. It's short range may make it awkward to use, but correctly deployed it will ruin whatever squad is unfortunate to stand before it, regardless of their ilk.
  • Though expensive, it could be used against cheap-infantry blobs in a pinch due to its spammyness, which is obviously a waste of its power. It's better used against TEQ and MEQs.
  • Salamander terminators, with their invul saves, not withstanding however, though you will score alot of wounds and likely take a few out.
    • Vulkan has a squad of these to bathe him each morning. Keep them the hell away from him, but against every other Primarch start giggling; especially Angron as he cannot even use his standard save vs the Mauler-bolt cannon!

Allies

Battle Brothers

• Sons of Horus Troop Reavers make excellent scoring units (you took Malgohurst, right?). Just keep them backed up with Castellax and Thallax.
• Iron Hands They don't really offer us much we don't already have. They do, however, soak up bullets very well, so consider them for forward objective capture.
• Salamanders Resolutely meh for us. Iron Hands and Iron Warriors capture better.
• Iron Warriors Tough fuckers who don't mind getting shot. Consider a few drop-pod fulls for capturing forward objectives. Or use them as heavy support whilst using thallax and castellax for clearing up dug enemies. Altogether the best legion alongside mechanicum
• Raven Guard With their ability to infiltrate infantry, they can sneak a vox anywhere on the field to guide in deep striking thallax/usurax. Consider if that's your play style, otherwise they don't bring us much we don't already have.
• Knights What's better than two knights palling it it up with your dudes? MORE KNIGHTS! Think this one through though, since we can already take them as lords of war.

Fellow Warriors

• Alpha Legion 20 strong Tac Squads that infiltrate on point? Yes please! This said, unless you're looking to take some armor as well, Raven Guard does it better, since they can call in deep strikers. Really it all comes down to how badly you want to field that Sicaran/have a Dreadnought Talon broing it up with your Castellax.
• Emperors Children
• Night Lords
• Death Guard
• World Eaters
• Word Bearers
• Generic/Other
• Custodes
• Sisters
• Imperial Army May act as objective-bench warmers; possibly bring ordnance onto the field?
  • Though with the increased squad size of Tech-thralls, this may not be such an issue now.
    • Solar Auxilia If you're taking these, you'll probably drop Tech-Thralls immiedatly; 100pts (Lasrifle section) for 20 man squad, Heavy2 36", overwatching on BS2, likely to get WS4 and 4+ save is pretty good in anyone's books. Though it has LD8/7, being able to always regroup is pleasant. Alternatively Veletaris offers you some pretty nice potent short range fire power, but any variation of Mechanicum is hardly lacking in that. What you want from an allied choice is most likely cheaper barrage/template options than the Thanatar. The Rapier battery can see this pretty well, with the Quad mortar option filling this best: 60pts for small template spamming with pinning, uniquely possessing a shorter ranged direct fire option which rerolls armour penetration. This takes an elite slot, but you would not be missing anything else in this, probably. The Artillery battery, though durable, is pricey compared to Vanilla guardsmen options (presuming Imperial-Army vanilla will use Chimera based Artillery).
    • Alternatively you may consider the Malcador. Yes a Superheavy as a heavy support option, and a fast super-heavy at that! It costs 5 points less than the Thanatar, you get 13/13/12 HP6 and 3 autocannons (Multi-laster and Hv.Flamer is free) alongside a Leman-Russ cannon, so you could leave it at that. If you feel like dropping 30 points you could get a Demolisher cannon and a Battlecannon firing at the same time (though, you would have to convert either Lascannons to a battlecannon or a hull gun to a demolisher if you're not performing a complete scratch build). If you wanted to fork out 10 more points you could the drop the fast property and ram your self up to front 14, you could then ram Flare shield and Armoured Ceramite, totaling up to 320 pts for vehicle that will take ALOT of shit forward facing and at 6 Hull points you'll be taking that for a while.
    • Imperial Milita and Cults have a dizzying array of options for you to take. You can make Pesudo-Skitarii with a combination of Survivors of the Dark Age and Cyber Augmented, or even get some cultist support if you're playing Dark Mechanicum. Generally they seem to be similar to the Imperial Guard from 40K, in that they have a large number of expendable soldiers backed by tanks, so take them if you want more bodies on the ground. Seriously consider which Provenances of War you give them, generally you will be wanting them to stay in place and camp objectives, so Abhuman Helots with Discipline Collars will work wonders, and if they have Cyber-Augmetics then they count as Sworn Brothers!
• Knights

Tactical Discussion

As Allies: Real talk. Legion troops cost a lot. Tactical Squad? 10 bolter marines for 150 points. Buy them a rhino or max them with an apothecary? 200-350 for 1 troop choice with only bolters. When you start looking at non-compulsory options like terminators or tactical support squads they break the bank even worse.

Enter Mechanicum (from book 2). The best way of getting cheap fearless troops into a legion army:

• 1: Cheap scoring units –The cheapest ally option. A naked Magos Dominus and two units of fearless Tech-Thralls runs around 165 points. That’s two fearless objective campers and a guy who can repair tanks. Now with Taghmata, even cheaper and more blobby!

• 2: Troop Deathstar –A Magos Dominus, some upgrades, and two scoring Castellax runs around 275 points. That’s ten majority toughness 7 wounds. If you take lance weapons, you have up to 6 48-60” S7, AP2, heavy 2 lance shots (which you can fire TWICE if you don’t roll like a 13 year old with a superiority complex on xbox live). Make them melee oriented and you have an all-around MC hunter or tarpit unit. Or just march it alongside your tactical blob- blow up tanks with your lances and then fury of the legion the assholes inside. If it’s still alive, charge in your MCs.

• 3: Skimmer + Objective Hunter – Thallax Cohorts are fast and their best feature is reducing cover saves by 2 points. 200 gets you a cohort and a Magos Dominus kitted into a support role. Use the Thallax to uproot objective campers in cover or hunt all those pesky jetbikes, skimmers, and light vehicles. Jink saves against the 2 S7 AP5 and 3 S6 AP3 shots? Bitch please.

Here's something to try: Make a Myrmidon Destructor squadron, four-strong. Pack two with Conversion Beamers and two with Irradiation Engines. Have them joined by the ArchMagos, pray you get the "Free Twin-Linked for a unit within 6"" trait, park in a tower and snipe to your heart's content. Everything comes at you gets cancer, everything that stays away gets Beamed. Be sure to reinforce with Castellax to toss head first at the enemy lines to give them something to keep shooting at.

As for Mechanicum allies; Ally LC with Taghmata, or vice versa. This is primarily to get the Archmagos for the Castellaxs and the Magos-Prime for the Thralls and the IC.

Magos options

There are so many different setups for Magos of any kind it deserves it own section - if to avoid cluttering the normal entries for Magos and Tactics.

• Magos Prime
  • [1]Photonman: Archmagos, Myrmidax, Photon Thruster, Photon Gauntlet; this works out at some a little shy of 200 points. You'll be spewing out, at 12", 4 AP2 Blind shots - woe betide any Terminator that dares to approach you. You may wish to give him a Cyber-familiar or a Warpshunt field to get 3+ invulns as without the Machinator Array, you are potentially vulnerable to Vindicators - and as one of the best uses of this guy is to plop him in a unit of Destructors this will likely be the case.
    • A Graviton Imploder may not be a bad alternative if you're looking for close range duties; or even Dual photon gauntlets if you're look to keep that Machinator Array. Both of these options however will reduce the long-capabilities massively (and the latter removing close combat capabilities, and lowering the likelihood of wounding).
  • If you just want to piss your opponent off, give your Magos/Archmagos the following: Nanyte Blaster, Phase Walker, Contagium Mechanica, Void Shield Harness, and a jetpack plus whatever else you might feel like taking, like an abeyant or cyber-familiar. every turn, simply pop up exactly at 12" from vehicle or infantry blobs and have at it with the appropriate relic fuckery, then jet out of charge range in order to continue fucking around next turn. as long as you don't get into close combat, you could completely decimate the entire enemy army with this one douchebag. Also could be useful for taking whatever objective you need in Maelstrom games, but that's mainly just the Phase Walker.