I thought I'd go ahead and post some thoughts I've bounced off Rug with the skitarii. At this point, a lot of this is open to discussion and very little has happened with stats for things. Mainly I'm looking to hash out what units the Skitarii have and how those units fit into the list structure as Core, upgrades, or support and the role of the unit. This much is there in a general sense. From there stats can be worked up and balanced. So let's get started.

The end goal is a list that doesn't play like any of the Guard lists out there but has a mechanical, implacable advance feeling to it. We are looking to use high tech stuff that would be available to the AdMech in larger quantities than regular guard or more arcane technologies that are aren't common to the rest of the Imperium. We are also looking to have a bit more unit variety and we need to do it without creating fan made units. In order to do that I only see one viable direction; we have to bring back Legio Cybernetica. Even though there isn't any specific recent fluff regarding them, they did get a mention in the description for the new Forge World Contemptor dreadnought so I think it's plausible for the robots to take the field in limited numbers. I should probably note they aren't sentient or AI but their actions on the field can be chalked up to clever programming by their controllers.

Also, for new units, another unit to add are the Secutors. These guys were mentioned in the Inquisitor's Handbook for Dark Heresy by the Black Library a few years back. They are few in number and heavily augmented with heavy weapons and arcane tech so they could possibly come as either a couple stand upgrade for the demi-century or as a terminator style and sizes detachment.

The second thing is that there needs to be some adjustment of the current units. To set things up for robots and a few other changes, the Flak support detachment and the sentinel detachment needs to be removed. Both of these give a distinctive Guard flavor and I think we can come up with a better means of AA in a detachment. To keep from killing off any AdMech hydras completely I think the Flak upgrade can remain. Fire Support detachments don't see a lot of use from what I've been able to determine. I could be wrong, but I think it may be partially due to lack of models and competition for support slots so I'm thinking of moving them to an upgrade for the demi-century.

So in a rough state, here's the general structure I see for the skitarii list:
Core
Demi-century
Minorus Company
Majoris - ?

Support
Robot Scout Maniple (5x robots probably LV)
Robot Support Maniple (5x robots probably AV)
Forge Knights
Tank Cataphract
Heavy Tank Cataphract
Orbital Support

Upgrade
Flak
Tech-Lord
Transport
Minorus
Secutor (2x stands max)
Rapier/Morter (4x stands)
Praetorians (4x stands) (possibly add AA)

Allies:
Unchanged


TLDR:
Removed Hyra detachment and sentinels.
Add Robots and Secutors
Focus list around demi-century with upgrades to determine role

So this is a rough idea as to my thoughts on where to take the skitarii list, feel free to comment and discuss. The more the better!

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-Vaaish

I'd note that the Praetorian stats were originally designed by me to represent 3 Robots in an infantry unit or 5 Praetorian upgraded humans, and I doubt you'd end up arriving at stats much different?


My inclination would be to remove these so you don't just end up with red painted Guard.

Robots > Ordinatii > Skitarii >>> Do they really need tanks too?


I like the idea of pulling out the Hydra and giving Praetorians or Robots an AA attack.

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I remember you saying this, but they may end quite a bit different I think that the stats for the praetorians is a good representation of the servitors, but I think there can be far more variety with the robots than the autocannons. I'm thinking of the robots being AV and LV for starters and at least one type filling the role that sentinels are right now although armed differently. I'm also thinking of each maniple being 5 stands of one robot each.

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-Vaaish

I'm a little concerned about the addition of robots to the list; I prefer the direction of having robots as optional counts as for things like Praetorians.

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I like the robots coming back; If anyone have them, it's the Mechanicum. I do hope the scout robot will be something that can reasonably be proxied by a single chicken-leg walker...

I like the idea of centering the list around Skitarii and their upgrades; it feels right to be able to upgrade Skitarii formations for specific battlefield roles (assault inf, garrison inf, support inf etc)

I have no feelings for the Tank cataphract, but I really prefer the heavy tank cataphract to stay - the Macharius is rare enough as it is in IG lists, I don't really think it screams "red guard". I'd like a Plasma Macharius variant

The Rapier/Mortar upgrade option could perhaps be extended with a slow AA gun ("Interceptor Quad-Gun" or some such). That would add AA capability at the Demi-Century level, and remove the need for adding AA to Robots or Praetorians (which seems a bit artificial to me). Between Interceptor guns, Ordinati Bolter and Titan CMLs I think ground AA is adequately covered?

I don't see the need for a Hydra either.

It would be nice to have the upgrade quantities a little more varied, to accomodate collection sizes.

I thought long and hard about this one, Zobo, and AdMech really don't have enough fluff out there on their units to wrap one of the few we do have info for under praetorians. If you want variety that isn't just guard painted red or a fan created unit, they have to come back. If you've got any ideas on giving the list more variety, feel free to post them!


This is the plan. We'll see how things go when I get into stat creation.



Right now I think the most logical place to add the AA is with the praetorians since there is some fluff for servitors shooting at air targets and they already have autocannons and are fairly well balanced. It'll also provide a bit more reason to take them over some of the other upgrades and has the benefit of not needing a new weapon added.


These are still tentative we'll see how things go and work from there.

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-Vaaish

are you bringing back electoo priests? :3

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If they can have a role and add interest to the list I'm open to putting them in, but didn't they eventually just become electro-priests?

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-Vaaish

largely, yes, but the current skitarii list dont have a (MW) cc-specialist unit, and i reckon the priests would fill that gap

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I'm leaving the transport option for Skitarii as it is. Changing to rhinos caused a lot of issues and it got swapped back the next version albeit with a variant chimera. Right now, the Chimedons work alright and are easily proxied with any regular chimeras.

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-Vaaish

Hy, this Looks Good . But please think about the robots .
In the history After horus hersey robots are forbidden And Domed by the imperial Law And the Emperor.
Robots Killed millions of People And Whole world in the Name Chaos, Chaos can easy Infekt robots And controll them.
.This was the reason why any robots are changes against serviators And Combat serviators.
This Unit Used the Human mind to controll any Aspekt of the Units .
(Try to find any Robot in the 40k Universe , the are all relaced by serviators .
I think the Pretorian fits very well in the background of all Books .

I didn't know that. But then the Butlerian Jihad... er, Horus Heresy was a bloody time.

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Yeah, gotta say I think the Servitor/Praetorian option is better than robots.

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Tibernius, I have thought very long and very hard about robots. I can find nothing banning any of the classic robot types (crusader, conqeror, colussus, etc), only AI. Could you please give me a reference for this? There is a huge difference between AI (forbidden) and robots (legio Cybernetica).

What I've been referencing is the new FW contemptor dreadnought reference to Legio Cybernetica and the Warhmmer Compendium. The Compendium says that since the heresy the legio has taken oaths of loyalty to the imperium more terrible than those of the marine chapters oaths and that over the millennia they have regained the respect of the rest of the mechanicus. As far as I can tell, there's been no fluff indicating that the Legio was dismantled, disgraced, or otherwise considered tech heresy.


I believe you are referring to the Men of Iron? These were true AI constructs that were corrupted by chaos, not the robots of legio cybernetica which have no sentience or ability to act outside of the instructions programmed in by their controllers prior to a battle.

Robots give AdMech something different as well as more variety in units with dreadnought like AV. Servitors are a completely different beast as infantry. The Servitors aren't going anywhere, but Robots need to make a comeback since it's about the only way to make Skitarii something more than IG painted red.

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-Vaaish