I've been rather busy, but I have been keeping an eye on things, fear not.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

*Pokes thread again

Since I'm starting in on the skitarii component of my AMTL, I'm a bit curious if anything has moved since february. I remember there was some talk about the allies limits, units, etc, but has any consideration gone into updates or battle reports? It seems like AMTL and Skitari are something of a red headed stepchild as far as reports go these days. Anyhow, I was reading through bits of the Horus HEresy collected visions book's Admech section to get some ideas for painting my skitarii and ran into something called protectors. They seem to be very heavily augmented and armored troops with almost all emotions removed but still retaining sentience unlike servators which could make an interesting skitarii unit.

Perhaps instead of a tech lord upgrade, make a tech lord detachment with a protector retinue that can take the praetorian upgrade.

Secondly, the story does talk about the servators shooting at a flying assassin which might make it interesting to have the Praetorians get an upgrade to allow them to target air units instead of using hydras. Maybe 50 points to get AA6+ since they are already armed with an autocannon and the hydra twin AC is AA5+. That would give them 5x AA6+ making them slightly weaker than the current hydras.

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-Vaaish

I'll admit it; I'm guilty of not submitting any batreps.

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"I don't believe in destiny or the guiding hand of fate." N. Peart

My biggest problem with the Skitarii list is that its fairly simple to build something plays pretty close to an IG list because of the hydras, chimeras, sentinels, Russ company, and artillery options. When it comes down to it I think all of these should probably be removed save the sentinels and perhaps the chimeras. I think the concept should be more of an infantry heavy force with ordinatus minorus used as a modular platform to partially fill the roles of the russ company and artillery. IE, you want artillery, take the minorus with three barrage missiles. It gives you the about same impact over the course of the game as an artillery company and shouldn't degrade as quickly for 25 points more. You want a russ company, Take a minorus company with an extra minorus 2x tld, and 2 PBG. Again, a little more expensive but nearly the same damage output statistically. With both cases the end result is a completely different look and feel to the IG list which I think better fits the AdMech. That's why I think it could be cool to replace the hydra completely to again give the Skitarii a much different feel. As it stands now, they do have access to four units with AA: Battle titans with CML, Hydras, Thunderbolts, and Marauders. Doing this would still give diversity but would also move away from the weaker 3 hydra formation and give you something that should be a little tougher to root out making it a viable alternative to taking thunderbolts.

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-Vaaish

Well the Skitarii ARE some kind of ImperialGuardish army but with special equipment.

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We are returned!
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Ordinatus should be rare even in a skitarii list.

Zobo, I agree that the majois should be, but I see the minorus as more of a titan weapon tractor than anything particularly unique. I don't see any reason why the minorus should be more rare than titans because there should be much less technical difficulty in producing a large tractor than a large walking tank.

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-Vaaish

The background certainly has them much rarer than titans.

That's because they're not considered front-line weapons, possibly? For all the Admech background, Titans take front seat. Who wants to read about Guard with funky tanks when they can read about giant walking land battleships of DOOM! I'd think the AdMech have planty of test rigs they can roll out in case of emergency (exactly the time a Skitarii PDF would be used). Even the Vulcan Macharii in Titanicus are almost identical to Minoris, except for the Voids.

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SG

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

Have started work on my own Mechanicus recently, so increasingly interested in where the AdMech list is heading.

I don't think the Leman Russ should be removed personally - the Ad Mech are responsible for making them in the first place, and it is the iconic Imperial tank. Although perhaps rather than a Russ company it might help distinguish the Ad Mech if they had smaller, more customisable Russ formations? I'd like to see more access to Executioners, for example, or Destroyers - complex and had to maintain technology and all that. Ditto for artillery - artillery companies doesn't seem to fit that well for admech, whereas smaller artillery formations probably fit in better.

I wouldn't mind seeing Chimera's go - perhaps replace them with Rhinos? Helps distinguish the Ad Mech from the Guard.

I think 'Protectors' are efectively praetorian equivalents personally, so don't really need an additional option in the list. After all, 'praetorians' covers a range of heavily enhanced infantry, varying depending on their forgeworld of origin or the Magos responsible for creating them.

Some more exotic support options might be an idea as opposed to rapiers and mole mortars - certainly in the Heresy artwork there are plenty of outlandish support weapons. Might be an idea as an alternative to including the Guard artillery units, or simply to add more options to the list. There's certainly some wacky weapons that could be embiggened to give mechanicus flavour - conversion beamers, web guns, graviton guns and the like - or inspiration could be taken from the Horus Heresy artwork, which includes plasma projectors, photon thrusters and other stuff.

Mind you, the further you take it from a modified Guard list I suspect the harder it will be to get playtests as people don't have appropriate models. The list already feels rather restrictive with the 2:1 Support/Core ratio considering the only core options are Skitarii or Ordinatus. Personally I'd like to see super-heavy formations back in Core, as they seem very appropriate for the AdMech background-wise.

What about something like the Ork Oddboyz.. an ability to swap 1 weapon on a Leman russ company to a test weapon with some silly stats.

Do Admech use Rhinos? I guess they could.. but I've not seen any suggestion of it.

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While we could group the protectors and for that matter, a wide range of Admech units under the Praetorians, I was looking for ways to expand the options available from the somewhat limited info on the AdMech units themselves. I wouldn't mind seeing a smaller Russ company comprised of the more exotic models, I just feel that a bog standard russ company is a little too like the current guard.

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-Vaaish

Heck, I'm not sure why Marines use Rhinos... silly tinfoil APCs with armor that don't work, go figure.

I'd think Hypasists, with their lighter armor, would want something a little more solid around them.

As for the Russes, there is sometimes a fine line between a SL list, a Minervan list, and a Skitarii list. My Steel Legion plays like Minervans, except I have none of the fancy Russes. Adding too many fancy Russes would make the Skitarii too Minervan flavored. The biggest barrier to entry for me is to find suitable Ordinatus proxies. Exotic support weapons can be abstracted into the current ones.

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SG

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

They're lightweight and so are air-transportable, unlike Chimeras.

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter