Will AdMech steal the show from us?

Beware the las chickens

sooner than later i will have to face them for sure, there is one AdMech player in my playgroup (and the bad news is that he is the most competitive of the group lol).
For now i can't play with him because of the pandemic, but here things are starting to stabilize, so soon enough i will be able to play against him.
Soon as this will happen i will let you know the results

Last time i played against him in 8th edition, his list was built around Castellan and heavy hitter, not a lot of troops, but from what i heard, in 9th edition its the troops that did receive some love from their new codex? So i don't know if he changed to the ground his lists.......

Do AdMech get "fall back and shoot"? I seem to recall hearing something about that.

Wyches are just consistantly good for me. The NO Escape rule is very underestimated IMHO.

I played against admech last night - incidentally, it was my first game of 9th edition (and thus, first with this codex). Admittedly, being a bit out of practice (and having not yet committed everything in the codex to memory), I made some pretty bad tactical blunders, and lost the game. However, aside from that, Admech firepower is no joke. My opponent was playing Mars, so his entire army got access to Canticles, on top of the usual doctrina imperatives that the skitarii get anyway. They also have some pretty good close combat builds as well. He had a large unit of rust stalkers, which he used in conjunction with 2 stratagems - one that gives +1A, and one that gives +1S, for 1 CP each. (granted, the +1S is probably wasted vs. Drukhari in most cases). The Kastellan Robots seem to be pretty good generalists, as they can each now take a flamer, their usual long range gun, and a fist.

I've been thinking a lot about that army as Drukhari have very few counters to AdMech. The reason I say that is because AdMech WILL outshoot Drukhari. However, there are a few things that I think might help.

1) MSU. AdMech aren't cheap. MSU can cause a lot of wasted shots. With Warlord traits and relics, and just good characters, a solid Hero Hammer army is more possible than ever for Drukhari.

2) Blast pistols. If you plan to charge vehicles or multi-wound infantry you may as well take the blast pistol with you. It's only 5 points. Drop in a succubus with precision blows and Dancer's edge and a roll of 6 will be bad for them. Fighting twice will be worse. And if they leave it alive after shooting, 2+ blast pistol may finish it off in your shooting phase.

3) BYOAC. bring your own auto chickens! I'm not totally sure how you value these things but Dark Technomancers may see some life here. 3 Talos....or Taloi? With stock splinter cannons and Potent Metallotoxins makes 18 shots hitting on 4+ wounding on 3+ with -1 AP and D3. We've got Fleshcraft playing the roll of Techpriest possibly with Master Regenerist and cause a little damage you might use Prey on the Weak strat. Obsidian Rose or Black Heart can reroll raider shots, never bad against a vehicle.

Finally it appears GW in it's infinite STUPIDITY messed up yet ANOTHER codex for failure to PROOFREAD! Seriously, why do people pay money for this? They probably meant for the turbo booster or thruster or whatever strat to not be used in the SAME turn in which they arive. If they insist on playing a broken rule until the FAQ comes out that's no different than a Drukhari player insisting Reavers are 10 points. They're THAT guy!

fisheyes wrote:

Personally, I would like to remove Strategems from the game. Really added an unnecessary level of complexity to the game IMHO.

Agreed.

Also, to me at least, they just feel very disconnected from the rest of the game.

If GW want to keep the whole Command Point system, my suggestion would be to tie them to actual commanders, similar to how AoS does it. But at most, we shouldn't be looking at more stratagems than you get prayers or psychic powers. There should be - at most - 1 page of them, not 4+ pages plus additional pages in supplements and such.

(In my system, this would replace auras on most/all HQs.)

totally agree that Strats are just an annoying level of complexity.
They are fun, they need to exist, that i agree, but as stated by @Soulless Samurai, not 3 to 4 pages, splitted between 3 books (Core book, Codex and Charadon)

It just slow down the pace of the game for nothing when for every decision you have to make sure there won't be a stratagem that would be good in this situation.
I know competitive players know them on the tip of their fingers, but that's far from being the case for the vast majority of players.

The command reroll or fire and fade stratagems are perfect, but when there is stratagem à-la Deadly Rivals or stuff like that, they should just include it in the model already as they already ask for super precise situation, so won't happen often, and worst case, just add a clause that this is a one-of ability per battle.

So, i'm not asking for strats to disapear, just that there is less

Into the darkness wrote:

3) BYOAC. bring your own auto chickens! I'm not totally sure how you value these things but Dark Technomancers may see some life here. 3 Talos....or Taloi? With stock splinter cannons and Potent Metallotoxins makes 18 shots hitting on 4+ wounding on 3+ with -1 AP and D3. We've got Fleshcraft playing the roll of Techpriest possibly with Master Regenerist and cause a little damage you might use Prey on the Weak strat. Obsidian Rose or Black Heart can reroll raider shots, never bad against a vehicle.

Bear in mind that the Dark Technomancers' +1 to wound does not work with poison attacks since the poison effect triggers on an unmodified 4+ . It does, however, give +1 to wound for the S2 attack vs vehicles, so it would simply wound them on a 5+ instead of 6+. Potent Metallotoxins would give them a 4+ to wound vehicles.  For this reason, Stinger pods might be the better choice. They'll wound on a 4+ as well, but are only D2 instead of 3. Still, they average more shots, have a much higher spike of damage, and minimize the amount of mortal wounds you might take in return.

sekac wrote:

Into the darkness wrote:

3) BYOAC. bring your own auto chickens! I'm not totally sure how you value these things but Dark Technomancers may see some life here. 3 Talos....or Taloi? With stock splinter cannons and Potent Metallotoxins makes 18 shots hitting on 4+ wounding on 3+ with -1 AP and D3. We've got Fleshcraft playing the roll of Techpriest possibly with Master Regenerist and cause a little damage you might use Prey on the Weak strat. Obsidian Rose or Black Heart can reroll raider shots, never bad against a vehicle.

Bear in mind that the Dark Technomancers' +1 to wound does not work with poison attacks since the poison effect triggers on an unmodified 4+ . It does, however, give +1 to wound for the S2 attack vs vehicles, so it would simply wound them on a 5+ instead of 6+. Potent Metallotoxins would give them a 4+ to wound vehicles.  For this reason, Stinger pods might be the better choice. They'll wound on a 4+ as well, but are only D2 instead of 3. Still, they average more shots, have a much higher spike of damage, and minimize the amount of mortal wounds you might take in return.

You're right...except it's a st3 weapon. Not trying to nit pick but if you're playing another Drukhari and shooting some t3 Wyches don't forget to take the 3+ over the 4+.

Dunno if anyone else has taken a look at the Book of Fire rules yet, but I'm officially very worried about Ad Mech now. The faction already seemed S tier and the Veteran Cohort gives a really solid number of buffs to the lists that were hitting tournament top tables anyways.

Someone said the meta goes through cycles where waves crash down on it when certain armies become overpowered. The DE wave is receding right now. An Ad Mech tsunami is about to crash down on all of us. What Skiitari can do now between their already broken codex and the new supplement will have everyone wishing they only had a handful DT flamers to worry about.

Burnage wrote:

Dunno if anyone else has taken a look at the Book of Fire rules yet, but I'm officially very worried about Ad Mech now. The faction already seemed S tier and the Veteran Cohort gives a really solid number of buffs to the lists that were hitting tournament top tables anyways.

A friend of mine did. Actually those new rules arent just for one forgeworld, but for all of them.
He wrote today in our WhattsApp Group, that it will add some very very powerful buffs.
Extra Ld, extra Atk, 5++ instead of 6++, always in light cover and no max attacks from blast weapons.
And some spicy strats. Hmm, maybe I should add one or two very...

Zenotaph wrote:

Burnage wrote:

Dunno if anyone else has taken a look at the Book of Fire rules yet, but I'm officially very worried about Ad Mech now. The faction already seemed S tier and the Veteran Cohort gives a really solid number of buffs to the lists that were hitting tournament top tables anyways.

A friend of mine did. Actually those new rules arent just for one forgeworld, but for all of them.
He wrote today in our WhattsApp Group, that it will add some very very powerful buffs.
Extra Ld, extra Atk, 5++ instead of 6++, always in light cover and no max attacks from blast weapons.
And some spicy strats. Hmm, maybe I should add one or two very...

Are there any (significant) restrictions to list-building, like in the stuff from Book of Rust?

As far as I know, Skirarii only, maximum 1 Techpriest each and a Marshal as Warlord.

Edit: Here we go!

Well that looks bonkers.

I'm quite curious - am I the only one whose eyes just glaze over when confronted with paragraphs full of keywords and abilities that are presumably explained elsewhere but which mean absolutely nothing to me?

I can't help but feel I could read the entire Admech codex and still wouldn't have the faintest idea what anything does.

Soulless Samurai wrote:

I'm quite curious - am I the only one whose eyes just glaze over when confronted with paragraphs full of keywords and abilities that are presumably explained elsewhere but which mean absolutely nothing to me?

I can't help but feel I could read the entire Admech codex and still wouldn't have the faintest idea what anything does.

2 str 4 shots per model with +1 to wound, at max though it could be 4 str 5 shots per model with +1 to wound potentially. It also buffs every weapon in the squad not just the standard guns.

Soulless Samurai wrote:

I'm quite curious - am I the only one whose eyes just glaze over when confronted with paragraphs full of keywords and abilities that are presumably explained elsewhere but which mean absolutely nothing to me?

I can't help but feel I could read the entire Admech codex and still wouldn't have the faintest idea what anything does.

Well, you will find out what it means eventually. I am pretty sure, someone you know plays AdMech.

toldavf wrote:

Soulless Samurai wrote:

I'm quite curious - am I the only one whose eyes just glaze over when confronted with paragraphs full of keywords and abilities that are presumably explained elsewhere but which mean absolutely nothing to me?

I can't help but feel I could read the entire Admech codex and still wouldn't have the faintest idea what anything does.

2 str 4 shots per model with +1 to wound, at max though it could be 4 str 5 shots per model with +1 to wound potentially. It also buffs every weapon in the squad not just the standard guns.

Fully buffed, you are talking about 80 shots, hitting on 2s (rerolling), wounding on 3s (+1 to wound, rerolling 1s), AP2. And they can teleport. And they have Transhuman, 2+/5++/5+++. For 10 points per model.

And you can have as many of those as you want, in squad sizes up to 20.

Looking at my Haemoxytes just feels bad now XD

This is some seriously META skewing stuff right here.

1500 points of Ad Mech can beat 2000 points of every other army except for maybe DE and sisters. Across the board they are ridiculously under costed. Las-Chickens cost 20 points less than a Raider. For a two shot assault Str 9 dmg 3+d3 weapon on a platform that moves 16 inches with an auto advance and doesn’t suffer any penalties to hit. They have 3+/6++ that can be buffed to a 2+ ignore AP 1/2 and can be taken in squadrons of five (maybe six?). And Rangers/Vanguard are worth easily twice they’re current costs with Lucius and the Book of Fire buffs they’re going to get. Ad Mech won 4 out of 8 GTs this weekend. In the largest event, the final four undefeated were all Ad Mech who then had to play each other. They’re sitting at a 65% win rate but if you exclude the mirror match, they’re easily above 70%. And yet. The outcry over them has been a mere fraction of what it was over DE. Curious....

sweetbacon wrote:

1500 points of Ad Mech can beat 2000 points of every other army except for maybe DE and sisters.  Across the board they are ridiculously under costed.  Las-Chickens cost 20 points less than a Raider.  For a two shot assault Str 9 dmg 3+d3 weapon on a platform that moves 16 inches with an auto advance and doesn’t suffer any penalties to hit.  They have 3+/6++ that can be buffed to a 2+ ignore AP 1/2 and can be taken in squadrons of five (maybe six?).  And Rangers/Vanguard are worth easily twice they’re current costs with Lucius and the Book of Fire buffs they’re going to get.  Ad Mech won 4 out of 8 GTs this weekend.  In the largest event, the final four undefeated were all Ad Mech who then had to play each other.  They’re sitting at a 65% win rate but if you exclude the mirror match, they’re easily above 70%.  And yet.  The outcry over them has been a mere fraction of what it was over DE.  Curious....

I'm convinced the lack of outcry is because they're a rarer and more expensive faction. Plenty of competitive players have a ten or twenty year old Dark Eldar collection filled with Raiders and Wyches that's sitting on a shelf somewhere collecting dust, not so many people have had the chance to collect a hefty Ad Mech list yet.

Ad Mech made up 9% of the meta over the weekend. They were the most played faction. It was a very savvy business move for GW to make the most expensive Army in the game model-wise the most overpowered army in the game as well.

Agreed. Pretty fun state of the game right now. So many different `tiers`of armies, often deciding games before you even roll a dice.

But I guess we all need to take a deep breath and remember our 6 weeks of Dark Techno wracks (those of us who ran those lists). I think its been 3 weeks now, so another 3 to go before we get a real nerf (assuming GW is consistent, which could be a poor assumption)

sweetbacon wrote:

 And yet.  The outcry over them has been a mere fraction of what it was over DE.  Curious....

Well, I think most people cried out, because of the Razorbus and DT Liquifier glitches in the rules.
Honestly said: Using those was kinda legit cheating. After fixing those, most voices got silent...

Even with DT Liquifiers and the Razorbus, we would still be underdogs against the new and improved Ad Mech.