Death Guard and Ad Mech Codexes Soon!

[InfestedKerrigan]

Forge World Focus: Graia

One of the most exciting features of the new Adeptus Mechanicus codex is rules for seven different forge worlds, allowing you to customise your collection more than ever before with powerful and thematic new abilities. This week, we’ll be previewing what the forge world rules mean for your army in our daily previews of Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus in advance of the pre-order this Saturday:

Graia is the most tenacious of the forge worlds, and every Tech-Priest and soldier of the planet is hard-wired to think only in terms of ruthless, uncompromising logic. Even Psykers find that their magics cannot find purchase on the sheer wall of absolute rationality projected by the Graian forces.

On the tabletop, Graian armis have a handy dogma that helps increase the durability of massed units considerably – Refusal To Yield:

This dogma is great on single wound models, essentially providing them with an additional layer of saving throws, while for high-points cost models, the potential to ignore a potentially fatal wound and keep fighting is very handy indeed. Nearly every unit in the Adeptus Mechanicus codex also possesses a 6+ invulnerable save, meaning that you could be ignoring a third of wounds.

Best Units

Fulgurite Electro-Priests are already a superb unit, capable of dealing huge damage in assault and growing in power thanks to Siphoned Vigour bringing them up to a 3+ Invulnerable Save. With the Graia dogma, a group of Fulgurite Electro-Priests get this save, followed by a second pseudo-saving throw from Fanatical Devotion, followed by their final Refusal To Yield roll. In practice, this means you’ll be saving 83% of wounds from normal sources and 50% of mortal wounds.

Zealous Congregation, a new Adeptus Mechanicus Stratagem, even allows you to fight again, making these worshippers of the Motive Force an even more efficient option.

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Skitarii Vanguard also work superbly in  Graia army; as we’ve stated above, they’ll be ignoring at least a third of any incoming wounds, while Graia’s unique Warlord Trait means you’ll be able to use these guys as a fairly potent assault unit.

Usually, Vanguard must choose between firing with their weapons or weakening enemies with rad-saturation, but with Emotionless Clarity allowing them to shoot into combat, you won’t have to!  

Graia is the army for you if you treasure durability above all else and want some handy insurance against mortal wounds (with theDeath Guard around, you’ll need it!). Come back tomorrow, when we’ll be looking at Metalica, most relentless of the forge worlds

[InfestedKerrigan]

Forge World Focus: Metalica

One of the most exciting features of the new Adeptus Mechanicus codex is rules for seven different forge worlds, allowing you to customise your collection more than ever before with powerful and thematic new abilities. This week, we’ll be previewing what the forge world rules mean for your army in our daily previews of Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus in advance of the pre-order this Saturday:

When you think of the Adeptus Mechanicus, mobility might not be the first word that comes to mind – yet the forces of Metalica make for a mobile force, capable of advancing rapidly while suppressing the foe with a withering hail of fire.

Metalica’s forge world dogma is Relentless March:

This is a versatile dogma that is superb for the line infantry of the Adeptus Mechanicus, allowing your Skitarii Vanguard and Skitarii Rangers to quickly close in on the optimum firing range for their weapons.

Best Units

As we’ve said above, Skitarii Rangers benefit from being able to advance and use their rapid fire weapons, whether you’re closing in on the 15” “sweet spot” for their galvanic rifles or repositioning in the face of an oncoming assault unit. Throw in the Protector Doctrina Imperative and you’ll all but mitigate your reduced accuracy for doing so!

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The Tech-Priest Dominus is a great leader for the Metalica army. As well as allowing you to take advantage of the powerful Ordered Efficiency Warlord Trait, the Adamantine Arm adds some much-needed power in melee and has the potential to catch enemy combat characters off guard!

 

Metalica is the army for you if you want to keep your forces mobile while maintaining a steady fusillade of firepower. Come back tomorrow when we’ll be checking out Lucius, the indomitable armoursmiths of the Adeptus Mechanicus.

[pretre]

Forge World Focus: Lucius

One of the most exciting features of the new Adeptus Mechanicus codex is rules for seven different forge worlds, allowing you to customise your collection more than ever before with powerful and thematic new abilities. This week, we’ll be previewing what the forge world rules mean for your army in our daily previews of Codex: Adeptus Mechanicus in advance of the pre-order this Saturday:

The forge world of Lucius is renowned for Luciun, a unique alloy known for its durability. Naturally, the armies of Lucius are armed with war-plate and weapons made of Luciun, lending them considerable durability against small-arms fire. On the tabletop, this is represented by the forge world dogma The Solar Blessing:

Being able to ignore AP -1 attacks helps your larger units resist armour-piercing firepower, reducing the impact of popular shooting weapons like heavy bolters and autocannons.

Best Units

Kataphron Breachers are pretty durable, but Toughness 5 is only so much of a defence against massed shooting.

Maintaining their 3+ save means your battle servitors will stay in the fight for much longer, while the unique Lucius stratagem, Legio Teleportarium, is perfect for delivering them into optimal combat range.

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Similarly, Kastelan Robots benefit from ignoring low-AP attacks for much the same reasons; as an added bonus, they can combine their firepower with the Kastelan Robots with the Elimination Volley Stratagem!

 

If you want to field the heavy hitters of the Adeptus Mechanicus without having to worry about massed small arms fire, then Lucius is the forge world for you. Come back tomorrow, when we’ll be checking out Agripinaa, dauntless defenders from the Eye of Terror.

[Nathanvoodoo]

Digity dang those admech rules are pretty dang cool. Glad to see they did something for the fulgerite- they were... not so hot.

[InfestedKerrigan]

Can Deathguard take Hellwrights? Do they gain all the benefits therein?

[InfestedKerrigan]

Do Mechanicus Knights benefit from Dogma? We don't know yet, do we?

[VonVilkee]

14 hours ago, InfestedKerrigan said:

Can Deathguard take Hellwrights? Do they gain all the benefits therein?

The chaos space marines book says you can pick any legion except death guard and thousand sons (they are getting their own books) to replace <legion> so unless there is a faq about it rules say no for now. Under index you could...

[WestRider]

Fresh Converts is garbage on Servitors (well, because the Servitors themselves are pretty weak), but looks even better than Tide of Traitors on Kataphron Units.

14 hours ago, InfestedKerrigan said:

Can Deathguard take Hellwrights? Do they gain all the benefits therein?

From the FW Index Chaos FAQ:

Quote

You can only choose for a unit to be from the Death Guard Legion if it has the Nurgle keyword, or if it has the <Mark of Chaos> keyword and you choose to replace that with Nurgle. You cannot choose for a Hellforged Rapier Battery, a Chaos Hellwright or a Chaos Hellwright on Dark Abeyant to be from the Death Guard.

[Swan-of-War]

Minor Point - Fresh Converts says they have to come in from your deployment zone, not "behind enemy lines" like the following paragraph says (unless your own lines are being overrun!)

[WestRider]

1 hour ago, Swan-of-War said:

Minor Point - Fresh Converts says they have to come in from your deployment zone, not "behind enemy lines" like the following paragraph says (unless your own lines are being overrun!)

Good catch. I guess I wasn't the only one who misread it because of the similarity to Tide of Traitors.

[SigurdBC]

12 hours ago, Swan-of-War said:

Minor Point - Fresh Converts says they have to come in from your deployment zone, not "behind enemy lines" like the following paragraph says (unless your own lines are being overrun!)

I'm glad someone else saw that too. I was thinking to myself that that analysis was incorrect using RAW, especially since there was an "and" following the list of restrictions and not an "or". 

[InfestedKerrigan]

Tactical Toolbox: Mastering Mortarion

After 25 years away from the tabletop (after his debut in the Horus Heresy-themed Epic game system), Mortarion is back, and he’s coming to a game near you. Like all Primarchs, Mortarion is a high-impact character that defines any game he’s in with powerful abilities, but he’s far from a guaranteed win. At 470 points, Mortarion is a considerable investment in any army list, and to get the most of him requires careful and considered play. Thankfully, we’re on hand with a Tactica dedicated to making sure the Death Lord lives up to his name, covering how you should be using this Daemon Primarch and which units to combine him with.Don’t play Death Guard? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered too! This is your essential primer to fighting against Mortarion as well as with him, and alongside a look at what he can do for an army, we’ve got some top tips on minimising the damage Mortarion does to your forces.

Reaping the Unworthy for Fun and Profit

Mortarion is a versatile Primarch who excels on the front lines of your army against a variety of targets. Toxic Presence is a benefit that helps your whole army, while Host of Plagues helps to chip away at enemy units and even potentially kill off key supporting characters trying to hide behind their squads, such as Commissars andPainboys.

In melee, Mortarion overcomes a disadvantage suffered by many hard-hitting Lords of War by having a dual attack profile. As you’d expect, Silence is great at killing Imperial Knights,Baneblades and other similar super-heavies, but thanks to the reaping scythe weapon profile, he’s also very effective at chewing through large blocks of infantry. When using reaping scythe, Mortarion effectively has 18 Attacks (!) at Strength 8(!!) with rerolls of 1s to wound and to hit (!!!) – with -2 Rend, this should suffice to devastate any infantry that try to stand in the way of the Death Lord!

Naturally, you’ll want to field Mortarion at the very front of your army – use him to range ahead of the generally slow-moving Death Guard army and devastate threatening units in close combat. You should expect to see Mortarion in melee around turn 2, and the rest of the Death Guard army to catch up with him around turn 4 or 5 – at this point, you’re likely to be mopping up any final resistance.

Mortarion is also a psyker with two powers from the Contagion discipline. We’ll discuss some handy powers for Mortarion below, but generally, we’d suggest using support powers like Miasma of Pestilence to enhance his durability and melee capabilities, leaving offensive psychic powers to the Malignant Plaguecasters in your army.

For the defending player, deploying strategically against Mortarion is key. There’s no avoiding him getting into combat with your units – you’ll need to decide which ones it will be. Try to keep single-model units like Dreadnoughts away from him. Terminators with storm shields, or any other unit with high invulnerable saves, is the best to hold him in place with – don’t try to confront him directly with your own Lords of War or bog him down with infantry (unless they’re cheap enough that losing 18 isn’t going to devastate your plans!)

Keeping the Death Lord from Dying

If Mortarion has a weakness, it’s high-strength, multi-damage weapons that tear through his armour save. Of course, thanks to an Invulnerable Save of 4+ and Disgustingly Resilient (and not even considering the multiple layers of psychic powers that can be used to enhance him) Mortarion is pretty durable against even the most powerful shooting weapons, but a canny player will be able to shoot him down. As Mortarion spends most of the game trying to get up close and personal with enemy troops, he’s particularly vulnerable to weapons like meltaguns – a team ofSternguard with combi-meltas or a squad ofDominions can put a premature end to this demigod’s reign of terror. If you’re taking Mortarion, we’d recommend including at least one unit of Deathshroud Terminators too – these allow you to distribute damage to your top units in a much more efficient way.

By making sure that meltagun/lascannon/equivalent hits land on your Deathshroud Terminators, you’ll never lose more than two Wounds to a single hit – while, if they landed on Mortarion, they could do as many as 6! For example, a unit of 6 Deathshroud Terminators has 12 Wounds, while Mortarion has 18. 3 lucky lascannon hits could kill Mortarion straight off the bat (dealing 18 Wounds worth of damage) but could only ever kill 3 Deathshroud Terminators (dealing 6 Wounds worth of damage).

While the Deathshroud are slow, they’re capable of teleporting onto the battlefield, meaning if you’re using Mortarion as a front-line unit as we’ve suggested, they’ll be able to keep pace with him. We’d recommend deploying your Deathshroud based on threats to Mortarion – if he’s in range of lascannons and other powerful weapons on turn 1, deploy them then, while if Mortarion can safely advance, deploy them on turn 2.

If you’re playing in a game against Mortarion where Deathshroud Terminators are in play, we’d recommend using plasma cannons or autocannons to take out the Deathshroud first before moving on to Mortarion – it’s much better to ensure at least one unit is dead rather than hoping for Mortarion to get unlucky.

Sharing Nurgle’s Bounty

Mortarion has the Nurgle and Daemon keywords, meaning he’s eligible to benefit from supporting abilities from other Daemons of Nurgle. Virulent Blessing, a Nurgle psychic power, adds one to all wound rolls for a chosen Nurgle Daemon and means that all wound rolls of 7+ inflict double damage. Combine this with the Blades of Putrefaction psychic power to add a further +1 to wound, and a third of your wound rolls will be dealing double damage AND a mortal wound! Get a lucky damage roll with the Eviscerating Blow from Silence and you could deal 13 wounds in a single hit – not bad! If you *really* want to push the boat out, you could also throw in the Veterans of the Long War stratagem – for when you really, really want an enemy dead. (We’re looking at you Guilliman…)

Of all the Nurgle Daemons to add to your army, we’d probably pick Epidemius. Epidemius’ Tally of Pestilence can result in some very powerful abilities, like an increased Toughness characteristic (bringing Mortarion up to 8!) or re-rolls of 1 for Disgustingly Resilient.

Again, we’d recommend that you focus your attention when fighting Mortarion on stripping away supporting characters first. Taking out Epidemius first may not be quite as impressive as killing a Primarch, but you’ll thank yourself in later turns.

List Ideas

There are loads of ways to use Mortarion in your games, but here are three novel suggestions for some fun and unexpected army lists:

Brothers of the Apocalypse: One Daemon Primarch is enough – but what about two? Combine Mortarion with Magnus and heal the rift between Tzeentch and Nurgle with some good old-fashioned violence.

Defile EVERYTHING: Mortarion, Epidemius, aHerald of Nurgle and as many Defilers as you can fit in. As both Nurgle Daemons and Death Guard, Defilers benefit from Epidemius’ Tally of Pestilence, Daemon Psychic powers and Mortarion’s Primarch of the Death Guard ability!

54 Wound Mortarion: Take Mortarion, and spend the rest of your points on Deathshroud. This effectively means your opponent will need to remove 54 wounds before Mortarion is dead – all in a 2000 point list. Will you win games? Maybe! Will Mortarion die, ever? Almost certainly not!

[Psilence]

GW's marketing team is getting better.

[Torg]

got my ad-mech book - and knights are in there - :)

 

[InfestedKerrigan]

I like the Command Point options being provided to Knights in there. Not a lot, but being able to fire at full strength just before death is pretty sweet on those beasts.

[VonVilkee]

2 minutes ago, InfestedKerrigan said:

I like the Command Point options being provided to Knights in there. Not a lot, but being able to fire at full strength just before death is pretty sweet on those beasts.

What else is in there for them? I don't really want to go admech but I have 6 knight models that I like to use... what gives me access to these stratagems (detachment requirements?)

[WestRider]

2 hours ago, VonVilkee said:

What else is in there for them? I don't really want to go admech but I have 6 knight models that I like to use... what gives me access to these stratagems (detachment requirements?)

You do need a Detachment (other than an Aux Support) that is completely AdMech to access those Stratagems. In addition to the one IK mentioned, there is one that gives a Knight a 5+ to ignore Mortal Wounds for the rest of the Turn, one that lets a Knight benefit from Canticles, and one that gives +1 to Invul Saves for one Knight.

[VonVilkee]

So lord of war aux would work? I guess I could do 3 knights of that one counts as well... so kinda like chaos space marines just need a detachment of them to do it...

 

Edit: oh lord it totally does single knight can get them...

[WestRider]

2 hours ago, VonVilkee said:

So lord of war aux would work? I guess I could do 3 knights of that one counts as well... so kinda like chaos space marines just need a detachment of them to do it...

 

Edit: oh lord it totally does single knight can get them...

Knights do not actually have the Adeptus Mechanicus keyword. A Detachment that is entirely Adeptus Mechanicus is the requirement to unlock those Stratagems, even the ones that only work on Knights. The cheapest you can do is a Patrol with an Enginseer and 5 Rangers for 92 Points.

I would recommend shelling out another 50 for a pair of Transuranic Arquebuses, tho. Short of the Vindicare, I think that's the best Sniper weapon in the Game, and if you use the Stygies VIII Dogma, they can be a real pain to dig out of Cover.

[Brother Glacius]

Great job GW, you've given me an updated book for 8th edition with no freaking new units. On the one hand, means I don't need to buy anything else. On the other, now I have to wait years before getting an admech flyer or transport that isn't FW.

[InfestedKerrigan]

Martians can't fly, silly goose.