Vs. Adeptus Mechanicus 8.0

[yoritomo]

8th edition is here and with it comes the new iteration of the Vs. Adeptus Mechanicus thread.

The intent of this thread is to gather all the questions, advice, tactics, and general knowledge regarding Adeptus Mechanicus. It is our hope that the serious discussion in this thread will help you achieve victory in your future games. If you are new then please feel free to ask a question. If you're a veteran then leave your impression or ideas on how to beat Adeptus Mechanicus. The more input we have the better we get as a community.

On an administrative note: as this is a focused discussion, the moderators reserve the right to remove off topic posts without warning.

[gartenzing]

Hi all. played about 10 games with new Nid codex vs AdMech Codex, so just some thoughts.

To set the scene, my regular adversary has an AdMech core-

Cawl
Datasmith
4 Kataphract robots (3 Phosphor blasters each)
3 Dunecrawlers (Eradication beamers)

This runs about 1100 points. It is usually bubble wrapped with Skittarii and has outlier Dragoons or Ironstriders. Also, Electro-Priests are more terrifying than Genestealers!

I have found that the key is to remove the bubble wrap. 6 Raveners with deathspitters can erase 2 units a turn (shoot 1, charge the other.) Genestealers can erase 3 in full units (multi charge, wether the overwatch.) However they then block the advance of the units behind, so I have learnt to be carefu; with positioning.

Expect to lose 2-3 monsters a turn to the Kataphracts. With Wrath of Mars, they pump out a horrible number of wounds. they also ignore the Jormungandr save boost, since they ignore cover. If you can lock them up in combat early because your opponent positioned badly, do so. If not, Biovores. DO NOT try to outshoot them, you simply wont, this is about wethering the storm.

To shut them down, I have found the best route is to have Venomthropes/ Malanthropes spread across your army and put Horror on them. Since modifiers apply before re-rolls, this means that 4's and 5's are being discarded, limiting the number of hits. However, with Wrath of Mars, this maximises the number of Mortal Wounds, so beware.

The main perks of Ad Mech are high toughness, good saves and invulnerable saves. To counter this we have smite, monsters and Genestealers. This is all about volume of attacks in a straight up fight. Their weakness is a lack of movement. Only their Dragoons and Ironstriders are fast enough to cause a problem. These are a pain- 6 wounds at T6. So hit them in CC with units that can reposition- any of our monsters wounds them on a 4+ or better, reduces them to their invulnerable save of 6+ and can easily do 6+ wonds per round. this shuts them down fast. Alternatively, if they are taken in larger units, tie them up with Gaunts etc- they have no ability to hit and run, and they are expensive, so making them fall back counts as a win.

Playing AdMech is about surviving 2 rounds of S6 shooting. do this and you win, fail and you lose.

Any specific questions please post below

[No One]

gartenzing said:

To shut them down, I have found the best route is to have Venomthropes/ Malanthropes spread across your army and put Horror on them. Since modifiers apply before re-rolls, this means that 4's and 5's are being discarded, limiting the number of hits. However, with Wrath of Mars, this maximises the number of Mortal Wounds, so beware.

I'm 90% sure that Cawl lets you reroll any shots, not just failed. So they could (in theory) reroll their "successful" 4s and 5s, because they know they won't be after modifiers.

Also, this shouldn't maximise Wrath of Mars: 6+ to hit can't activate with a -1 to hit (since 6s become 5s) (I'm assuming 'Wrath of Mars' is a proc on 6+ effect. If it's not, I've got no idea what's going on).

(As an aside, while not applicable with Cawl's funky reroll (noted above) and the fact that natural 6s don't matter, under normal circumstances this wouldn't change the number of 6s: since they'd reroll 1s and 2s base (BS3+?), and they'd reroll 1s and 2s with a -1 if they reroll failed, they'd get the same number of natural 6s.)

[gartenzing]

Nov 15, 2017 5:00:29 GMT No One said:

gartenzing said:

I'm 90% sure that Cawl lets you reroll any shots, not just failed. So they could (in theory) reroll their "successful" 4s and 5s, because they know they won't be after modifiers.

Also, this shouldn't maximise Wrath of Mars: 6+ to hit can't activate with a -1 to hit (since 6s become 5s) (I'm assuming 'Wrath of Mars' is a proc on 6+ effect. If it's not, I've got no idea what's going on).

Cawls rule appears as this: 


"Lord of Mars: You can re-roll any hit rolls in the Shooting phase for friendly MARS units within 6"."

According to the FAQ's. re-rolls apply before any modifiers. So on BS4+, you can re-roll any 1's, 2's and 3's, then the modifers apply (-1 to hit for spores, -1 to hit for Horror) so they only actually hit on 6's.

Wrath of Mars unfortunately lands on a 6+ to wound, so there is no way of modifying it that I am aware of, but could be wrong- however I was incorrect in my assertion above, fewer hits means fewer Wrath of Mars (for some reason I had the electro-priest rule in my head when I typed it, apologies)

It means that 4 Kastellan robots each with 3 Heavy Phosfur  Blaster in shoot twice mode get 22 hits on average with re-roll and -2 to hit (vs 54 hits with no modifiers.) Wounding on T7 gives them 3.6r Mortal Wounds and 7.3r saves with a -2 modifer ignoring cover (vs 9 Mortal Wounds and 18 saves). 

Net result- a Hive Tyrant, Trygon, carnifex etc survives if the modifiers are in place, and die quickly if not. 

Against Stealers, 3.6r Mortal Wounds and 14.6r saves (vs 9 Mortal Wounds and 36 saves)

Net result- after saves, around 5 Stealers will be alive on average from a full unit, as opposed to being wiped out. 

Those modifiers make a hell of a difference to Tyranid key units, and help units get into CC to tie them up and stop them shooting completely.

[No One]

gartenzing said:

"Lord of Mars: You can re-roll any hit rolls in the Shooting phase for friendly MARS units within 6"."

According to the FAQ's. re-rolls apply before any modifiers. So on BS4+, you can re-roll any 1's, 2's and 3's, then the modifers apply (-1 to hit for spores, -1 to hit for Horror) so they only actually hit on 6's.

No. Any hit rolls, not failed hit rolls. That 6? That's a hit roll: if I'm feeling weird, I can reroll it. That 1? Hit roll. That 5 that would normally hit but doesn't because of negs? Hit roll, reroll. It's a really powerful reroll mechanic.

Wrath of Mars unfortunately lands on a 6+ to wound, so there is no way of modifying it that I am aware of, but could be wrong- however I was incorrect in my assertion above, fewer hits means fewer Wrath of Mars (for some reason I had the electro-priest rule in my head when I typed it, apologies)

Damn . There are some negs to wound, but nothing we have access to (the only one I can think of that applies to shooting is the Harlequin's shadowseer bubble).

[dc0315]

What di we do vs that stratagem that lets mechanicus fire 1 unit in an enemy phase that costs 1cp? Im asking because lets say u start first. End of movement phase uses strat fires a big unit, end of psy phase uses it again, end if shoting phase again, end of charge phase again, end if fight phase again and end of morale phase again meaning he can fire same unit again and again in every PHASE of a turn, yours or his. It has not been faqd

[No One]

Same thing everyone did with 1+ FNP: house rule it out because it's blatantly stupid. If they insist, don't play them. Because honestly, playing that straight RAW is probably the most broken thing I can think of (about the only legit counter would be mass HG/rupture fex playing out of LoS/range).

[dc0315]

Feb 28, 2018 11:39:07 GMT No One said:

Same thing everyone did with 1+ FNP: house rule it out because it's blatantly stupid. If they insist, don't play them. Because honestly, playing that straight RAW is probably the most broken thing I can think of (about the only legit counter would be mass HG/rupture fex playing out of LoS/range).

And if u face it in a tournament? U wont even reach assault before he kills everything you have outside range, then its his turn.... and 1 unit of HG wont win a tourney game alone if everything else around it is dead

[No One]

dc0315 said:

And if u face it in a tournament? U wont even reach assault before he kills everything you have outside range, then its his turn.... and 1 unit of HG wont win a tourney game alone if everything else around it is dead

Call over a TO. Just because it's RAW, doesn't necessarily means TOs will play it: as I said, look at 1+ FNP (never played despite being RAW), 2++ etc for previous examples. I know this has been brought up somewhere here with the TOs saying outright that you wouldn't be able to use that strat.

If the TO gives it the green light...I don't know if there's much you can do. HG out of LoS, stay out of range/LoS/in reserves until they run out of CP/whittled down is probably your only option? As I said, it's broken: broken doesn't really have counters pretty much by definition. Mass reserves drops may be workable, but at that point the rest of their army should be able to kill whatever's left.