Continuing my personal take on the Adeptus Mechanicus at war, as described over here.

I've rebranded it as a variant list, and will try to track the changes happening in the main list closely. The variants here are just that, variations on a theme.

I like the reintroduction of the Divisio Cybernetica and have added proposed stats for a set of robots:

- Scout robots, rebranded sentinels fulfill the same role in the army.
- Battle robots and Siege robots, using dreadnaught stats. I think dreadnought shells piloted by a cogitator instead of a crippled marine fits the concept well enough. The old plastic dreadnought fits the bill perfectly, in my opinion, and they even come with a conversion beamer nowadays.

Now, I'm a believer in Special Rules, in moderation. I think a lot of the flavor of an army comes down to a few, well-chosen special rules - after all, what would Marines and Eldar be without ATSKNF and Hit and Run? The AdMech army is not really carrying any special rules at the moment, apart from God Machines (which frankly rarely has any effect), so I've added one for Robots, to portray their strengths and weaknesses in combat:



The attached tech-priest is of course an Enginseer with a retinue of Servitors rather than a Skitarii Tribune, but I think the statline fits well enough.

Some thoughts on the lists and their purpose in life:

The Planetary Defence Force list differ from the main list in its focus on static, high-tech installations - I wanted something that evoked a fight in the middle of a functioning Hive City, instead of the buildings being mere backdrops.

The Explorator list is there because I wanted the ability to portray the Quest for Knowledge as something central to Mechanicum culture.

I've also added a Reductor Regiment list, inspired in no small part by the discussion going on about the main list. It is at the moment just brainstorming, because I liked the thought of Ordinatus artillery and Macharius Omegas smashing walls, Achilles Land raiders crashing thorugh the breach and Myrmidon assault specialists emerging from tunnnellers in the enemy rear lines... This is my suggestion to portraying this. If it all becomes possible in the main list, I'll probably remove my variant again.

Just a couple of notes. If you haven't had a chance to check my thoughts on the skitarii thread for the initial direction for the scour and assault robots. I'd really recommend leaving out the tech-priest on the maniples. Everything I've seen says that the priest would stay back and monitor the robots progress after uploading the battle program so he isn't likely to be with the robots. Also, one infantry stand in a anything but the LV scout robots is asking for it to be picked of netting two BM and halving your capabilities. I'd just leave it at 4 robots.

I'd also just make the robots initiative 3 to begin with and drop the special rule. I do like fearless and I'm planning on testing the robots with it at some point, but it should go in the notes for the unit rather than a special rule.

I'd also chance Myrmidons to Secutor. Myrmidons seem to be a specific branch in the Calixis sector while the generic term appears to be Secutor from what I can see in the Inquisitors handbook for Dark Heresy.

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-Vaaish

Thanks for the feedback; I've updated the list a bit in accordance. Some comments below:


I was using this as a source; Depending on reading, it sounds to me like the Tech-priests do accompany the robots into the field, especially at the operational scale of E:A. I think I'll make the tech-priest an optional upgrade - without it, they play exactly like yours, with it, they play smarter, but run the risk of losing their controller.

I'm adopting your robot stats, with a few changes:
- Following the Dread statline, shouldn't they have 3+ armour?
- I'm keeping two flavours of robots - as you say, they all have similar loadouts, so I'm not representing all four, but I wanted to have both an up-close assault configuration and a long-range fire support configuration available.


It's really just a matter of optimizing the rule-space - "robot" is a package of effects, comprising the ini modifier, fearless etc., so I thought it more efficient to refactor them into a special rule. It also saves me from cluttering the army list header with special cases for different initiatives.

Have you considered the "no BM from failing initiative" effect? I thought it captured the feel of robotic programming failure well - they don't panic, or get confused, they just "hold" and do things slower.



Again, I was using the Lexicanum as my source; from that, the Calixis sector specific Secutors are called "Divine Light of Sollex". But, yes, Myrmidon is apparently a sub-type of Secutor; I've changed my list entry to Secutor, using your stats (except I've changed them to 4+RA/Inv; 3+RA is a bit much)

I'm not entirely sure lexicanum is accurate. I was reading the source documents that those articles were based on.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/36670380/Warh ... ndium-1989

page 97 of the compendium says the Tech-priests are rarely present on the battlefield.

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-Vaaish

Nice! There's a blast from the past - I didn't know there were such detailed robot rules in the early editions (all I have from back then is the Rogue Trader softcover book).

But, I do think the source points to the tech-priests getting into harms way themselves: "Indeed, many of the Adepts of the Legio [Cybernetica] have been killed while taking part in military operations" [p96, ibid]

The ones that are "... rarely present on the battlefield (unless they can help it) ..." are "... lesser tech-adepts who perform ... maintenance" [p97]

There is supporting evidence for robots deployed without close supervision too ("The robots had been programmed to advance in an apparently mindless fashion, and proved easy targets..." [p97]), so I think there is good cause for having the tech-priest as an optional upgrade.

This also allows the formation to be used in Marine or Inquisition lists, without the Techpriests, where they would perform as described - pre-programmed, with limited battlefield flexibility.

Wow, what an amazing read. I think I had that whitedwarf years ago. The idea of that logic flow chart is really neat, obviosuly too detailed for anything useful in epic but a wonderful, characterful little mechanism.

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You see a mousetrap, I see free cheese and a f*cking challenge

I took that to mean that they were fairly close to the front lines to monitor the robots and were killed when their positions were overrun or in a bombardment rather than right next to the robots. Either way, I'm not saying the adepts are never present, just not as likely to be there. It also seems more useful to encourage people to take them if they didn't have an odd infantry stand in there.

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-Vaaish

Fair enough. I read it as being within shouting distance, ie same formation. I think they present an interesting choice as they are - yes, they are vulnerable, but they can be in cover always (next to an AV), and may be placed out of LOS (in forests, ruins or behind hills) with the rest of the formations out firing away. And they offer some rather nice buffs to the unit - Better initiative, Leader and Commander. To me, that's just about worth 50 points...

Hey,

Had a chance to review the PDF list.


Good stuff:
- It's clearly a PDF, what with all the defence installations
- Ordinati are a core part of the list
- Doesn't have too many infantry types without clear model proxies (the core list does)


Bad stuff:
- I don't think the Guard tanks should be in there (Russes, Machariuses)
- There's too much variety in defence installations (plus too many unique special rules)
- There's probably one too many types of Robot
- There are too many Titan configurations available
- If I said that Vaaish's list had the most options in any list in Epic, I was wrong, this list surpasses it. :-)
- Too many 0-1 choices.



Some changes I'd look to recommending:

- Remove the IG tanks. They detract from the theme.
- Remove the 0-1 limits from everything except the Tech Lord.
- Remove all but the following Defence installation types:
=- Defence Laser
=- Underground Facility Entrance
=- Lightning Field Pylon (needs to be made into a destroyable scenery piece rather than a unit for gameplay purposes - as you can't enter the ZoC of a hostile unit, so its ability to zap things can never actually happen)
- Reduce number of robot types (Heavy & Light)
- Go down to less types of Titan. Either a limited configurations setup, or just Standard Configuration Titans.
- Add those Curtain Walls that you liked from my PDF list
- Start pricing Ordinatus types individually because the solution in the core list can never be balanced


With changes like that, I think you hone in on the theme, and have a chance of getting the list balanced this decade. Let me know what you think.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

OK, Removed.


The installations and their rules are really the flavour of this list. But, I can move most of them to a "friendly games only" section, then we can balance Defence Laser and Underground facility first and go from there.


I'm still trying to get a two flavours of heavy robots into the core list, but if that doesn't happen, then I'll follow along. Leaving them in, with the proviso that they're following the core list development.


Hum. Not really seeing this as a problem?

Variety is the spice ...

Yeah. The installations don't need 0-1, since the Infrastructure rule already specifies that they're unique.

Modified the Pylons. Better? I like them as a Passive formation, to avoid lengthy explanations of what happens when you fire at a cluster of them.

Will be tracking the core list.


Again, unconvinced as to the need. I'm really not sold on the idea of standard titans..



Done. Also added a gate (we're building toy fortresses, yes?) and made them part of the installation formations. You like?


I assume you mean the majori? OK, done, but again, I'll be tracking the core list for this.


Find attached a list with the updates above incorporated. Are we getting closer?

It's not going to be possible to balance them. They're not even all that balanced in the AMTL list, let alone a list that lacks the core-support structure of the AMTL list.


Variety means you can never balance the list.


0-1's paper over cracks in balance. 0-1's should only ever be applied on background rationales.

Furthermore, I'd delete the Critical Infrastructure special rule, and just have the defence installations as normal units. Since they're immobile they'll be able to garrison.


As noted in the very sentence you quote, they can't actually work if they're a unit.

You won't get a balanced list without it.


The gates don't seem to do anything.


Both Majori and Minori need individual pricing. If you follow Vaaish's lead on this, once again, you won't get an internally balanced list. You might get the Quake + CLP formation balanced.


More comments:

- It would help me if you would pull out everything from the document that wasn't appearing in the PDF list. Split off your explorator army list.
- Making curtain walls, pylons, etc, units is really complicated. Again, pylons can't actually carry out their intended fuction if they're a unit because their ZoC means that units can never move between them, and walls as units is just odd.
- You've changed the walls so that infantry units can't actually shoot when they're on top of a wall.
- Don't see a need for Interceptor Gun, Air defence Bastion, and Bukers. Not when you have Curtain Walls & Defence Lasers.
- You've got a lot of x-to-x size options for formations. Pick a single size and price it there. You won't get a list balanced with too many size options.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

I still don't understand why lightning fields generators need an attack at all?

You have two opions to pass through the line: shoot them or Engage them. If you shoot them they don't get their attack; if you engage them they have their CC or FF First Strike attacks. So I think that the passive rule and the special attack are both unneccessarty complications.

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SG

Ghost's Paint Blog, where everything goes that isn't something else.

I would suggest just treating them like the razor wire from the Baran Siegemasters army list, with the following mods:

- Any unit that tries to pass through a laser fence takes a hit on a 4+.
- Fences may be de-activated by attacking them in some manner, and they have an armour save of some sort.

I'm pretty sure you could do it pretty succinctly without need for special rules etc.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

them as units didn't need a special rule either - i thought it was quite elegant myself.

A lot of the other stuff I agree with you though - crit infrastructure is unnecessary once you think about it.

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My shifting projects

You can't actually pass between them (so their zap rule has no purpose) due to their zone of control, and you need a special rule to stop them activating like a normal unit.

So as units, they don't even work, and you need a special rule.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter