Thanks, My feelings on robots are that the colossus are a bit too easy to negate. Crusaders are mostly fine if slightly underpowered. My biggest concern is that they are a tad bland and don't really "feel" like robots. That's why I'm considering something similar to ATSKNF. Just something to keep them from breaking as much and being a bit harder to hack down but not outright fearless or requiring me to increase the formation sizes. Just to note, none of the robots have AA, just the servitors.

Knights are a sore point. They have good stats but they also end up being expensive and rarely pay off especially once they break and get vaporized by a few BM. The cost aspect was addressed by giving the three strong option, but it accents the pathetic durability of the detachment. At full strength you at least have better odds of using them once

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-Vaaish

I suspect Knights would come into their own if you took 3-4 formations of them, where they'd be brutal.

But with just one formation, they're easy to focus on and negate as a huge threat that lacks range.

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Seconded. They are very flavorful, they should have something reflecting that flavor.



I think Jacob can be forgiven the mistake, since I'm using the old Robot models for Servitors (and eggshell sentinels for Crusaders, and SM Dreads for Castellans - scale creep?).

I also agree with him, AA on them feels odd.



I don't have the models to playtest that (and no, I don't play with coke cans or empty base proxies, not even in the name of Playtest)... But my gut feeling is that even 4 x 6 Knights are fairly easy to deal with - they don't have a transport option, and are not especially speedy, so it takes them a while to get somewhere useful. In that time, any halfway competent opponent ought to be able to render them useless through weight of BMs, even if they don't actually die. But, I'm just guessing here, I'm prepared to be convinced otherwise.

Ok. Now that the polls are over, here's my thoughts.

Skitarii changes:
Secutors given multi-meltas to better define their role.
For the time being I'm shelving the Conversion beamer. It's a cool idea and fits well with the secutors background but it's complicating the secutors function. (you all really don't like having heavy downsides to shooting). MM should help define them a bit better and keep them as a useful options along with praetorians.

Praetorians AA shot removed and save reverted to 3+
The original idea for the infantry support upgrade has since been changed considerably and the AA shot doesn't have much downside and there's no either/or choice anymore so I've reverted the Praetorians to their original stats to keep the demi-century from having the ability to be everything.

Robot special rule added, Crusader and Colossus gain “Robot” special rule
This works just like the marine version except the robots don't get the hackdown benefit that marines have if they lose an assault. This will hopefully make the robot maniples more useful and less prone to supression,breaking and melting to BM without having to increase formation size. They can still be over run in assaults so I'm hoping this will make robots a tad more flavorful.


Sagitarii Mole Mortar option upgraded to 2x mortars.
Boosted this so it's a straight swap between the two. You can either have the AT shot (and may give them an extra FF attack) or you can have disrupt. Sagitarii may eventually get the conversion beamer to replace plasma cannons although that might require some points balancing.

Now for the controversial change that are on the horizon:
Ordinatus Majoris: Will likely move to support to emphasize the rarity and prevent it from taking a CLP minorus upgrade.
It will definitely be limited to only ordinatus weapons with the possibility of more options eventually.

Macharius: I am seriously considering moving this to allies. We know that the mechanicus has fought either using the macharius themselves or alongside it so I'm reticent to remove it entirely especially given the poll results. However, E&C did bring up a valid point and shunting it to Allies shouldn't have a huge affect on the number of detachments people could take.

Allies: I'm going to attempt to rework this to allow for 50% total points to be spent on allied titans, but only 33% of the total points on other allies. Not entirely sure if this is even going to be possible.

Please discuss your thoughts and opinions on this. (this includes the lurkers that usually just pop up after a change has been made!) We'll see how things stand at the end of the week and I'll see about putting up a new test list.

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-Vaaish

You are probably right, but at that point it's practically a knight list rather than a skitarii list I think the idea would be to get them useful in one or two formations. They are a cool and flavorful unit but it's really hard to justify including them in a list. I can't count the times I've started adding them and ended up dropping them in favor of another unit.

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-Vaaish

Would be ok with change to both Ordinatus Majoris and Macharius.

Don't like the change to Allies %. Prefer to keep it at straight 33%. Keeps it simple. Keeps the AM Titan legions list distinctive from Skitarii. No need for it.

Cheers

James

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Agreed.


Concur.


OK with trying this. I still think they should be Fearless


OK, will try it when you post it. I actually liked the Mole Mortar Sagitarii in a Transport Minorus formation in the last game - it didn't do anything useful, but it had plenty of potential.


Fine. They're supposed to be rare.


I'm not sure they need to be toned down, though. They're not taken, mostly because they're really poor choices...


Slightly artificial, but it works for me as an interim solution until the Armoured Division materializes. Will the Leman Russ follow the same path?


Um, don't see the need. If I want to play with lots of titans, I field the AMTL. It's true that it's not possible to use either list to build an army with 50/50 titans and combined-arms regular forces; Is that what you're after? If so, you could just move the Titans to Support?

Looking forward to the next list!

I did have them as such in an internal version and it really doesn't fix any of the issues. All you gain are robots that can't get hacked down and don't die to every BM that's thrown at them. The core issues still remain in that they are very easy to supress and break. This route lets them take considerably more fire and prevents them from being easily suppressed while being harder to take out when broken.


This more than anything is a test change. I want to see how doing this affects the attractiveness of the mortar vs. plasma.


it's not toning down so much as consolidating options. Most of the time people take just the ordinatus weapons when they take a majoris so not much is lost this route and it is one of the two areas we can reduce unit count.




No, the russes are staying. I may drop them to 5 though to cut the detachment cost and keep with the skitarii 5's theme. This should account for the vague nature of the fluff we have for the macharius more than anything.

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-Vaaish

At some point, you need to stop and ask what models are intended to be used for all these various infantry types.

I still say the Conversion Beamer would work best on the Tech Priest / Lord units, with stats that properly represent its awesome power.


Could work.



Don't see a point in limiting weapons for a PDF list, but then, this isn't a PDF list.

Best to rename the list to Adeptus Mechanicus Field Army, or something, if you're going to lack "home ground" elements like a full variety of Ordinati, defence installations, etc.


The poll went up before I put up an Armoured Division variant army list to salve people's fears. I would suggest that people won't really care if Russes & Machariuses get stripped from the PD... no wait, this is a generic list. Keep 'em. Keep 'em in the core, why not?


We tried that before. It was overpowered.

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Thanks for the response!


Added types: Sagitarii, Secutors. Secutors can be made from Tech Marines with bits added. Sagitarii can be made from whatever models are being used for hypaspists (kev's stuff, IG models, your cadians, etc).
Added Vehicles: Crusaders, Colossus. Crusaders can be represented by sentinels or robot models. Colossus can be represented by robot models or the old marine dreads.

With the CB pulled from the Secutors, putting it on the tech priest/lords sounds like a good idea I'll see about doing that then.



Let's not be so quick here. I get that this isn't going the exact direction you had in mind, but I'm not you. In fact, I should probably point you back to the list you posted as being representative of a PDF for the skitarii over in the "on lists and missions" thread. That list limits the weapons far more than anything I've proposed. If you are so against limiting weapons for a PDF, why on earth did you submit a list that does exactly this and call it a PDF list? Have you changed your mind about what represents a Skitarii PDF? Remember you keep saying that the list will never be balanced without reducing the number of units, and there are only three places that unit count can be reduced in any significant form in the list: the Titans, Majoris, and the Minorus. (viewtopic.php?p=439153#p439153)



I propose moving the macharius to better represent the fluff available, I don't think they should be stripped entirely from the list given the ambiguity but they shouldn't be in the support section. Russes, while iconic of guard, are executioners which are rare in guard and are still fine for AdMech. However, no one seems to take the russes, but everyone seems to dislike their removal. I guess we can strip them and see if that raises the ire of DS and Onyx Perhaps we can eventually see about putting Valdor Tank Hunters in their place?



Ok, I'll scrap that then.

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-Vaaish

A- it was a starting point to build from, and more versions still need statting and pricing.
B- it didn't reduce the amount of ordinatus Majoris by 90%, which is what you're doing (while keeping non-essential Skitarii elements like Machariuses and the full range of AMTL Titans).


Agreed.

I'd compare this to the removal of the various invented super-heavies from the Tau army list.
There were massive protests from a few people, they agreed to their removal only if variant lists would be created to host those units, and then when they were given the chance to test those variant lists they never did. If units aren't being taken and don't reinforce the theme, kill them.

EDIT: I'd suggest the best list for the Valdors would be the Skitarii Armoured list.



Yes, and the latter two of those are core to the Skitarii theme (Unless you want to write a generic "everything the mechanicus has" army list).

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