Detachment Focus: Cybernetica Cohort

In our Detachment Focus series we take a deep dive into an army’s Detachments, covering what’s in them, how they play, and how they’ll fit into the broader meta and your games. In this Detachment Focus we’re looking at the Cohort Cybernetica Detachment for the Adeptus Mechanicus.

Do you like medium-size robots? Do you tire of the rare bits of flesh remaining in your standard Adeptus Mechanicus infantry? Well, the Cybernetica Cohort is your solution, giving you an army focused on Kastelan robots and vehicle units. It’s by no means the best way to play the Adeptus Mechanicus competitively, but if you just want to run a bunch of lumbering robots set to “KILL,” it may be the most fun option.

Detachment Overview

The Cohort Cybernetica is a unique detachment.  First, its detachment rule’s only ability is to grant a particular unit (Kastelan Robots+Datasmith) the army rule, which they otherwise do not have.  Second, every single stratagem is applied in your command phase, which taxes your ability to plan the entire battle round and have enough CP for all the things you want to do.  With all that being said, if your favorite thing about Admech is watching large Robots be programmed to do murderous things, you will have fun with this one!

Detachment Rule: Cyber-Psalm Programming

LEGIO CYBERNETICA units from your army gain the Doctrina Imperatives Army rule.

This is one of the weakest detachment rules in the game. Many detachments that are meant to buff a specific segment of an army at least do more than buffing more two datasheets that have to co-exist together (think Canoptek Necrons as a good example). And most detachments of this variety have a second rule that either is a major buff to the specific units the detachment is designed for, or allows other units in the army to have a purpose in the detachment. This does neither and effectively grants a rule to those units which every datasheet in the army should already start with, no strings attached.

Enhancements

All of the Enhancements for this Detachment are for TECH-PRIEST models only, and three of the four affect VEHICLE units, though Lord of Machines affects enemy vehicles.

• NECROMECHANIC (25 Points) – Once per battle round, when a saving throw made for a friendly LEGIO CYBERNETCA or ADEPTUS MECHANICUS VEHICLE model within 12” of the bearer is failed, the bearer can use this Enhancement. If they do, change the Damage characteristic of that attack to 0. This is the best enhancement of the bunch and as close to an auto-take as you will see here. Usually this is given to a Tech-Priest Enginseer who follows the Kastelan unit and grants one model 5+ Feel No Pain, and can also zero out a nasty attack. Can also be used to keep Skorpius tanks safe as well.
• LORD OF MACHINES (20 Points) – Once per turn, at the start of your opponents shooting phase, select one enemy vehicle unit within 12” and visible to the bearer. That unit has to take a Leadership Test: If they pass then until the end of the phase they get -1 to their Hit rolls; if they fail, that unit is not eligible to shoot this phase. This occurring in the opponent’s Shooting and not in their Command phase or start of their Movement phase is its big downside; with Infiltrators nearby and this enhancement on a Datasmith you can charge in, do some damage, and consolidate closer to enemy vehicles and the test would be at -1 or 2 depending on if the Infiltrators were near battleline or not. This would be a sick play to set up, but because it occurs in the enemy shooting phase, there is no reason for them to put key vehicles within 12″ and visible of this enhancement’s bearer, rendering it very hard to utilize.
• EMOTIONLESS CLARITY (15 Points) – Once per turn, when a friendly LEGIO CYBERNETICA or ADEPTUS MECHANICS VEHICLE model with the Deadly Demise ability that is within 12” of the bearer is destroyed, you can use this enhancement. If you do, skip the roll for Deadly Demise – you automatically do damage. This is a great way to do mortal wounds to your own army for little benefit. There are not enough rules that grant a buff for units below starting strength where this would be valuable.
• ARCH-NEGATOR  (10 Points) – Ranged weapons equipped by the bearer have the [ANTI-VEHICLE 4+] ability. If our Tech-Priests had better shooting this would see play.

In sum, a fairly mediocre selection of enhancements with Necromechanic being the standout choice and usually taken. The rest are quite forgettable and largely there are better things to spend points on.

Stratagems

The Six Stratagems here can be used on either LEGIO CYBERNETICA or VEHICLE units. One of the unique things about the Cohort Cybernetica Stratagems is that every single one of them has to be used in your Command phase. This is a double-edged sword: On the one hand, you’ll never have to think about using them reactively or during turns. On the other, all of your Stratagem moves will have to be thought out in advance and you need to save CP so you have enough on key turns.

• Motiver Imperative (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – Used in your Command Phase on an Adpetus Mechanicus Vehicle unit. Until the start of your next Command phase, increase its movement by 3” and add 1 to its advance and charge rolls. Kastelan Robots, a fairly slow unit overall, benefit tremendously from this stratagem on the turn you plan to commit them to combat. The other unit to benefit the most from this Stratagem is Sydonian Dragoons with Taser Lances if you decide to use them.
• Machine Superiority (Epic Deed, 1 CP) – Used in your Command phase. One Legio Cybernetica or Adeptus Mechanicus Vehicle can Fall Back and Shoot, also it can ignore any and all modifiers applied to its characteristics and any rolls or tests it must make until the end of your turn. This is a great Stratagem and often utilized on your damage turn on Kastelan Robots, or to allow a Skorpius tank to gain its full value if one is tagged in combat. There are many powerful modifiers in the game (minuses to hit, -1 damage, halving damage, -1 to wound, OC manipulation, and much more), and being able to ignore all of them is fantastic.
• Auto-Divinatory Targeting (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – Used in your Command phase.  Pick a Legio Cybernetica or Adeptus Mechanicus Vehicle and an objective marker. Until the start of your next Command phase, that unit’s ranged weapons become BS 3+ and gain the Ignores Cover rule, however they can only target enemies within range of your selected objective marker. The qualifier of being in range of a specific objective marker is the main limiting factor here. This is useful on a Skorpius tank or Onager, but is less useful on Kastelan Robots as the combat variant is superior to the Phosphor variant.
• Transcendent Cogitation (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Used in your Command phase on a Legio Cybernetica or Adeptus Mechanicus Vehicle unit. Until your next Command phase, both the Conqueror Imperative and the Protector Imperative are considered active for your unit. This is another great stratagem, especially for Kastelan Robots, allowing them to benefit from the +1WS and +1AP from Conqueror while also gaining the -1 to hit in melee if near battleline units to try to keep them alive.
• Machine Spirit Resurgent (Epic Deed, 1 CP) – Used in your Command phase on a Legio Cybernetica or Adeptus Mechanicus vehicle unit below its Starting Strength. Until the start of your next Command phase, that unit can re-roll Hit rolls. If it’s below half Strength, it can also re-roll wound rolls. The second half of this stratagem will rarely come up, but the first part is outstanding and means that you can run the Kastelan Robots without needing Cawl to boost their efficiency with their quality attacks. 
• Benevolence of the Omnissiah (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – Used in your Command phase. For one battle round, one Legio Cybernetica or Adeptus Mechanicus Vehicle unit gains a Feel No Pain 6+ ability, which is improved to Feel No Pain 5+ vs Mortal Wounds.
  This is okay and useful in certain matchups, but usually the Enginseer placing a 5+FNP on one model is enough to tank mortals and you can instead spend CP to make sure the Robots get to where they are needed and kill what you need them to kill.

Four very strong and useful stratagems with two solid stratagems adds up to a great suite of stratagems and that’s one of the reasons that I personally rank this detachment higher than Rad Zone Corps. Thanks to the variety of strong buffing stratagems here, Kastelan Robots can be lore-accurate and deal devastating damage up close. The key is banking CP in the early game to be able to afford to throw out one or two turns of crippling damage to the enemy during the mid-game.

Playing This Detachment

There are two main ways to play this detachment. One is to release your centuries of love for enigmatic sci-fi Robots by taking several units of Kastelan Robots and attempting to “stat check” the enemy early, throwing 8+ Robots with Datasmith friends in tow straight onto the middle objectives and asking your opponent “what would you like to do about this?”

This style can work against unoptimized lists and against players that struggle into aggression. But it has two clear counters: One is simply using infiltrators or fast units to physically block the robots from moving up the table, extending the amount of time you have to either shoot or ignore them for other targets. The other way is bring high-damage armies like Ultramarines with double Oaths of Moment for that sweet plus one to wound, applied across a bevy of Ballistus Dreadnoughts and Vindicators. Robots have good defense, but not enough to withstand that for long.

Instead, I think Kastelan Robots are best used as a counter-assault tools when the enemy exposes key units in the mid-board. Instead of using the Robots to initiate the game, you utilize the many great scoring tools of the Mechanicus to get a score lead and when the opponent does get aggressive you then utilize the Robots. At their current cost it is difficult to bring enough stuff around an 8+ Robot list and so usually I prefer running 1×4 or 2×2 in this role.

The heavier you lean on Robots, the more Sicarians you need bring to systematically charge and kill the enemy units that will try to block their movement in the early turns.

Strengths

• Let’s be honest: One of the main reasons you started a Mechanicus army was the dream of running ancient robots. This detachment does allow and encourage you to run more than one unit of them if desired.
• Great suite of stratagems for a wide variety of common situations/problems. 
• Admech has the cheap units to surround an expensive core of 400+ point units.
• The June update which improved our army rule dramatically increased the value of the Transcendent Cogitation stratagem to benefit from both Protector and Conqueror.

Weaknesses

• Thanks to the Transoracular Dyad Wafers Enhancement, the Haloscreed Battle Clade offers an alternate path for running a Cybernetica unit with a much better detachment rule.
• Having all of your Stratagems being used in the Command phase in an army without guaranteed additional CP from a rule (like a Calgar, Azreal or Imotekh) makes the detachment very difficult to play. Even players with extreme CP discipline have struggled with this problem when playing Cybernetica.
• Kastelan Robots have continued to go down in cost but their base cost isn’t the entire problem as they are effectively saddled with the cost of each Robot, the Datasmith for the unit, and usually an Enginseer. Possibly Necromechanic as well on one of the characters. That’s a much more expensive unit to justify.

A Sample List

Editor’s Note: The Cybernetica Cohort shares the same problem many other Adeptus Mechanicus Detachments have, which is that we haven’t seen a truly successful list, i.e. one with a TiWP, recently. As such, Richard has opted to provide his own.

Do we go heavy Robots or token amount of Robots is the question? Its Cybernetica, let’s try a list that goes up to 8 Robots!

Richard’s Cohort Cybernetica List - click to expand

This list is designed to be flexible enough to focus on the mission early using its infiltrators, Serberys Raiders and Skatros to secure points early, while Skystalkers support that role in the mid-game.  The two max Robot units supported by Datasmiths and Enginseers deliver extreme punishment up close as the enemy attempts to control mid board.  Skorpius soften up targets from ranged before the Robots engage.

As mentioned before, you need to try to trade the Infiltrators for the enemy’s move block units early so that when the enemy commits to mid board the Robots are not prevented from reaching combat with them.

On more open boards you will want to cut down to one Robot unit and grab more Skorpius or Onagers.

Final Thoughts

Overall, Cohort Cybernetica, even with its very limiting detachment rule, is one of the better Mechanicus detachments in my opinion.  If you love running Kastelan Robots, there is enough power here to justify running one to two large units of them.  However, spamming them will run into difficult matchups as you start running low on resources to play the mission and because your damage is combat oriented on units that can’t go through walls or advance and charge in this detachment, it can be hard to cripple the enemy in a single turn.  The new Space Marine meta with +1 to wound oath of moment certainly doesn’t help Cybernetica, but it still has the legs to go toe to toe with many armies in the meta!

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