What to expect from 30k mechanium?

[corrm]

I've got a game arranged this week with a 30k mechanium army (I'll be playing Dark Angels).

Has anyone played them before or does anyone play them? Just wondering what type of army to expect and what to look out for.

[YorkNecromancer]

If he's using Robots, kill the guys with the Cortex Controllers. Robots are absolutely beastly, and need to be priority targets. Castellax are your primary threat; think of them as cheap Carnifex that are tougher to kill, and have some fairly devastating guns.

If he's using the big robot with the Plasma Howitzer, you'll need to bring some Force/Instant Death weapons, because those things are crazy hard to kill.

Thallax are very solid; they're tough, but only put out a 30" threat bubble, so plink them from out of range, or else get in close and drown them in bullets - there usually won't be enough of them to tarpit you or overwhelm your guys.

If he's using Myrmidion, the assault ones aren't too dangerous until they're within range; kill them before they get there. If he's using the gun versions, ESPECIALLY if he's using them with Volkite Culverins, keep your infantry away. They hit on 2+ with a re-roll, and a blast from five Destructors with Volkite Culverins will destroy literally any squad through sheer weight of fire; cover won't matter, because there's just so many highly accurate, high damage shots. Don't give them LoS.

If he's got tanks, it's going to be drop in close and melta them; they're all very tough, but susceptible to melta... Unless he's using one of the build-your-own Land Raiders the Ordo Reductor use and has it kitted out with a Flare Shield, in which case the only thing that'll kill it is a Thunder Hammer or D shot.

Overall, the Mechanicum are: scary tough, absurdly shooty, and average to strong in melee. Their weaknesses are their dependence on Cortex Controllers, their generally lower model count, and their weak, non-Robot Troops, who are like Imperial Guard conscripts but worse.

They're a very scary army in my opinion, but not Wraithknight level scary. Keep out of LoS, and bring lots of high strength (and preferably Instant Death) weapons; str 7 or better is absolutely necessary.

[corrm]

Thanks for the overview! I'm not sure what he regularly fields, but he did quite well in the last tournament.

[Makenshi]

If he's using Robots, kill the guys with the Cortex Controllers. Robots are absolutely beastly, and need to be priority targets. Castellax are your primary threat; think of them as cheap Carnifex that are tougher to kill, and have some fairly devastating guns.

If he's using the big robot with the Plasma Howitzer, you'll need to bring some Force/Instant Death weapons, because those things are crazy hard to kill.

Thallax are very solid; they're tough, but only put out a 30" threat bubble, so plink them from out of range, or else get in close and drown them in bullets - there usually won't be enough of them to tarpit you or overwhelm your guys.

If he's using Myrmidion, the assault ones aren't too dangerous until they're within range; kill them before they get there. If he's using the gun versions, ESPECIALLY if he's using them with Volkite Culverins, keep your infantry away. They hit on 2+ with a re-roll, and a blast from five Destructors with Volkite Culverins will destroy literally any squad through sheer weight of fire; cover won't matter, because there's just so many highly accurate, high damage shots. Don't give them LoS.

If he's got tanks, it's going to be drop in close and melta them; they're all very tough, but susceptible to melta... Unless he's using one of the build-your-own Land Raiders the Ordo Reductor use and has it kitted out with a Flare Shield, in which case the only thing that'll kill it is a Thunder Hammer or D shot.

Overall, the Mechanicum are: scary tough, absurdly shooty, and average to strong in melee. Their weaknesses are their dependence on Cortex Controllers, their generally lower model count, and their weak, non-Robot Troops, who are like Imperial Guard conscripts but worse.

They're a very scary army in my opinion, but not Wraithknight level scary. Keep out of LoS, and bring lots of high strength (and preferably Instant Death) weapons; str 7 or better is absolutely necessary.

Abit offtopic but a friend have been pestering me about starting 30k but not knowing anything about the units in 30k I've been on the fence for the longest while. Now after having have read your description and rundown here have made me very interested. Going to have to order the book and possibly even get an army! Thanks friend, well written!

[Ruadhan2300]

Speaking as a 30k Admech player myself...
Here's a breakdown:

Magos Prime - depends on the loadout, the Magos can be literally anything from an assault beast to a shooting monster, There's a wide range of support capabilities too, ranging from being amazing at repairing vehicles/robots to dropping orbital bombardments and boosting the accuracy of artillery.
Depending on your opponent, you may face a Magos who's really focused down on one task (in which case, fight him outside of his area of expertise because he'll mince you otherwise) or a jack of all trades who excels at nothing.

Thallaxii - most armies will have a unit or two of these, they're very durable, but any S10 weapons will instantly kill them, the biggest threat to a Mechanicum army is Vindicators and Demolisher Cannons for their S10 templates. The Thallaxii don't bring a great deal of volume of fire, so they have a lot of trouble with hordes of infantry or with enemies that have lots of ways to save wounds, for example FnPs. What they have however is pretty solid, S7 and up, but crap AP.

Castellax battle automata - T7 Monstrous creatures with 4 wounds and a 3+, 5++.
Very very hard to hurt reliably. The standard primary armament is a S6 AP3 heavy bolter.
Groups of Castellax will reliably tear marines to shreds. Multi-meltas and lascannons are your friend, bring as many as you can. but massed autocannon fire will do the job too.

Tech Thralls - Slightly punchier conscripts. They can't shoot worth a damn, but their guns are reasonably solid with a couple upgrades. The purpose of Tech Thralls is to hold down objectives while the much more agile Jet-infantry Thallax do all the moving. The one place they excel is when you have 20 of them covering an objective and carrying heavy chainblades. with the right upgrades they act to seriously bog down any assault force.

Myrmidons - they come in two varieties. Shooty and extremely shooty. They pretend to be Assault and Devastators, they are lying.
Myrmidon Secutors with pairs of plasma fusils absolutely will turn whatever they shoot at into so much swiss cheese. Never EVER underestimate them, we're talking over a dozen S6 AP3 hits on the same target. but their range is 24" or less generally speaking. hit them with anything better than S6 and they will fold though. Melee-wise, they're carrying power axes, they're not amazing at melee.

Myrmidon Destructors pack really really heavy guns like Conversion Beamers and such, I don't make a lot of use of them but they tend towards exceptional range and power.

Vorax Battle Automata - hunter killer robots, lots of low strength firepower on a very fast moving infiltrating platform. As a marine player you have little to fear from most of their weapons, but their melee is S6 AP2.

Thanatar Siege Automata - I have two of these T8 4W 2+,5++ MCs. They have never ever died. They carry large blast melta artillery that makes you reroll your cover saves. be very very wary of them.

Vehicles: I haven't made much use of them, but there are basically three options for tracked vehicles,
Krios battle tanks (more fast moving field-artillery than tanks really),
Triaros armoured conveyors are large transport vehicles, they can take some solid Anti-personnel firepower with them, but their biggest strength is that the entire front of the vehicle is a Power Weapon...They're horrifyingly good at ramming other vehicles and incinerating infantry during tank-shock.
Land Raiders - Build Your Own Land-Raider kit with some extras. you should be well aware of what they can do
The transports are mostly used by tech thralls and myrmidons for getting around.


Everyone is so hung up over Cortex Controllers.
You do not need them to be effective with Admech, they're there to make the robots -better-. not functional.
The basic rules for robots is that without the cortex controller, they shoot with up to three weapon systems rather than 2, but they HAVE to shoot and assault the nearest target within 12". if there isn't one, they behave entirely as normal.
I don't equip my army with cortex controllers most of the time. Anyone near enough to a Thanatar to activate the robot rules deserves the giant plasma mortar to the face anyway. Vorax are explicitly designed to operate ahead of the mechanicum lines outside of control anyway. the Castellax are the only robots to really benefit from it most of the time unless you want the Thanatar to fire its mortar twice (totally do it!) per turn


So in summary...
Mechanicum: extremely shooty, fairly mobile, short to mid-ranged for the most part. the average weapons range is 18" with a few exceptions at 24" and almost nothing beyond 48".

They suffer a lot when dealing with hordes (they can't kill enough models fast enough) but they mulch marines like mashed potato. Bring weapons longer ranged than 24", stay out of the killzones and focus on any Myrmidons and Thallax. Ideally, bring Vindicators. as a marine player they're the single best Mechanicum killer you have. no armor saves, no fnp, instant death on squads of high-wound models. You can't go wrong with them.

[sanguine8082]

Ah my good friend, you forget about a major weapon the Thallaxi, Castellax, and Destructors can carry: Photon weapons. Keep your 2+ save away from these guys (aka out of LOS). These weapons are strength 6, and the darkfire cannon is strength 7, both at AP 2. They are Heavy 2, lance, blind, and gets hot. If he happens to run a Magos Dominus, a Castellax with one of these will be pushing out 4 of these shots (giving up his next shooting phase). Cybertheurgy powers are not game breaking, but he can give extra attacks to his robots or give them It Will Not Die.

Castellax blobs function similarly to any deathstar, however, do NOT rely on poison weapons to wound these guys. Their Cybernetic Resilience rule makes poison only wound on 6's. They can take two wounds from Haywire though. Cybernetic resilience also gives all battle-automata Adamantium Will, so don't go trying to cast Misfortune on them.

As said above, put out the largest volume of high strength shots you possibly can. I highly recommend a drop pod of devastators kitted with grav cannons. You will be wounding Castallax on a 3+ re-rolling, and the Thanatar on a 2+ re-rolling, with 4 wounds a piece and only a 5++ to rely on...it hurts, alot. If you are feeling brave you can throw a blob of infantry at the thanatar, he is only WS 2, you won't kill him, but he probably won't kill you quickly either

Best of Luck,

[Makenshi]

Speaking as a 30k Admech player myself...
Here's a breakdown:

Magos Prime - depends on the loadout, the Magos can be literally anything from an assault beast to a shooting monster, There's a wide range of support capabilities too, ranging from being amazing at repairing vehicles/robots to dropping orbital bombardments and boosting the accuracy of artillery.
Depending on your opponent, you may face a Magos who's really focused down on one task (in which case, fight him outside of his area of expertise because he'll mince you otherwise) or a jack of all trades who excels at nothing.

Thallaxii - most armies will have a unit or two of these, they're very durable, but any S10 weapons will instantly kill them, the biggest threat to a Mechanicum army is Vindicators and Demolisher Cannons for their S10 templates. The Thallaxii don't bring a great deal of volume of fire, so they have a lot of trouble with hordes of infantry or with enemies that have lots of ways to save wounds, for example FnPs. What they have however is pretty solid, S7 and up, but crap AP.

Castellax battle automata - T7 Monstrous creatures with 4 wounds and a 3+, 5++.
Very very hard to hurt reliably. The standard primary armament is a S6 AP3 heavy bolter.
Groups of Castellax will reliably tear marines to shreds. Multi-meltas and lascannons are your friend, bring as many as you can. but massed autocannon fire will do the job too.

Tech Thralls - Slightly punchier conscripts. They can't shoot worth a damn, but their guns are reasonably solid with a couple upgrades. The purpose of Tech Thralls is to hold down objectives while the much more agile Jet-infantry Thallax do all the moving. The one place they excel is when you have 20 of them covering an objective and carrying heavy chainblades. with the right upgrades they act to seriously bog down any assault force.

Myrmidons - they come in two varieties. Shooty and extremely shooty. They pretend to be Assault and Devastators, they are lying.
Myrmidon Secutors with pairs of plasma fusils absolutely will turn whatever they shoot at into so much swiss cheese. Never EVER underestimate them, we're talking over a dozen S6 AP3 hits on the same target. but their range is 24" or less generally speaking. hit them with anything better than S6 and they will fold though. Melee-wise, they're carrying power axes, they're not amazing at melee.

Myrmidon Destructors pack really really heavy guns like Conversion Beamers and such, I don't make a lot of use of them but they tend towards exceptional range and power.

Vorax Battle Automata - hunter killer robots, lots of low strength firepower on a very fast moving infiltrating platform. As a marine player you have little to fear from most of their weapons, but their melee is S6 AP2.

Thanatar Siege Automata - I have two of these T8 4W 2+,5++ MCs. They have never ever died. They carry large blast melta artillery that makes you reroll your cover saves. be very very wary of them.

Vehicles: I haven't made much use of them, but there are basically three options for tracked vehicles,
Krios battle tanks (more fast moving field-artillery than tanks really),
Triaros armoured conveyors are large transport vehicles, they can take some solid Anti-personnel firepower with them, but their biggest strength is that the entire front of the vehicle is a Power Weapon...They're horrifyingly good at ramming other vehicles and incinerating infantry during tank-shock.
Land Raiders - Build Your Own Land-Raider kit with some extras. you should be well aware of what they can do
The transports are mostly used by tech thralls and myrmidons for getting around.


Everyone is so hung up over Cortex Controllers.
You do not need them to be effective with Admech, they're there to make the robots -better-. not functional.
The basic rules for robots is that without the cortex controller, they shoot with up to three weapon systems rather than 2, but they HAVE to shoot and assault the nearest target within 12". if there isn't one, they behave entirely as normal.
I don't equip my army with cortex controllers most of the time. Anyone near enough to a Thanatar to activate the robot rules deserves the giant plasma mortar to the face anyway. Vorax are explicitly designed to operate ahead of the mechanicum lines outside of control anyway. the Castellax are the only robots to really benefit from it most of the time unless you want the Thanatar to fire its mortar twice (totally do it!) per turn


So in summary...
Mechanicum: extremely shooty, fairly mobile, short to mid-ranged for the most part. the average weapons range is 18" with a few exceptions at 24" and almost nothing beyond 48".

They suffer a lot when dealing with hordes (they can't kill enough models fast enough) but they mulch marines like mashed potato. Bring weapons longer ranged than 24", stay out of the killzones and focus on any Myrmidons and Thallax. Ideally, bring Vindicators. as a marine player they're the single best Mechanicum killer you have. no armor saves, no fnp, instant death on squads of high-wound models. You can't go wrong with them.

What would you say is the core of a mechanicum army? and would you say vehicles/things with armour values are more vunerable/the same as 40k/or less vunerable in 30k? Not sure how different it is from 40k so no idea what i want or what i should buy.

I really need to try to find some Mechanicum batreps on youtube

[corrm]

Hey everyone, thanks for all the advice and analysis on the Mechanium, much appreciated!

I've posted the battle report from the game on my blog [url]http://standwargaming.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/battle-report-15-1500-pts-dark-angels.html[/url] , hope you enjoy.

[Ruadhan2300]

What would you say is the core of a mechanicum army? and would you say vehicles/things with armour values are more vunerable/the same as 40k/or less vunerable in 30k? Not sure how different it is from 40k so no idea what i want or what i should buy.

I really need to try to find some Mechanicum batreps on youtube

My own experiences don't really include vehicles much, but they're all solidly built and mount Flare Shields. basically a modest invulnerable save which inflicts blind on nearby units.
I'd say they're on the upper end of the vehicle armour scale in terms of durability, but they rely on their shielding more than their armour.

The core of my army is my Thallaxii, I've got two full 9 man squads of them and they generally are very very survivable. 54 wounds with T5, 4+ sv and a 6+FnP
They're very vulnerable to S10 template weapons however

If you're feeling like playing it differently, huge nightmare swarms of Heavy Chainblade armed Tech-Thralls make for a surprisingly hard to kill force which can tie up objectives easily.

I've been running three of my Thallax with the Photon Thrusters to modest success. the added range is good, but Thallax have BS4 and no upgrades to improve it. where the rest of the army on average are BS5.
The Castellax's Darkfire Cannons would be a much more accurate choice and have the extra option for a magos to cybertheurgy them to get two shots a turn.

Castellax are technically Troops choices, however they're non-compulsory troops choices, you need at least two other units to field them.