Detachment Focus: Haloscreed Battle Clade

Merry Grotmas! Games Workshop is releasing a new series of detachments – one per army, every day until Christmas. In this series we’re looking at these new detachments, covering what’s in them, how they play, and how they’ll fit into the broader meta and your games.

The Adeptus Mechanicus have had a rough run through 10th edition, to put it mildly. They saw an underwhelming codex that followed an already anemic index set of rules released alongside Necrons that became a meta menace, then saw a massive overhaul this past June that has breathed fresh life into them. Despite this, they still are a niche force and are typically played at about half the rate of an average army. The most common (and successful) way of running the army right now is in the Skitarii Hunter Cohort, which has an excellent toolbox of stratagems while giving much of the army added defensiveness in the form of Stealth on key units. That brings us to the Haloscreed Battle Clade, which brings some interesting abilities to the army.

We’d like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a preview copy of this Detachment for review purposes.

Detachment Overview

Haloscreed Battle Clade departs from the themes seen in most of the Adeptus Mechanic codex detachments, which each focused on an individual section of their army (i.e. Skitarii Hunter Cohort for Skitarii units, Data-psalm Conclave for Electro-priests), and instead has no keyword restrictions present. This allows for many different list-building options, though some are pushed a little harder (Kataphron Breachers, Kastelan Robots) by the abilities granted.

The Video Version

If you’re interested in a video version of this review, we’ve got you covered:

Detachment Rule: Noospheric Transference

In your command phase, you choose a number of your units based on the battle size (1 for Incursion, 2 for Strike Force, 3 for Onslaught). They gain the HALO OVERRIDE keyword, and you then choose a buff to apply to all HALO OVERRIDE units in your army. The available buffs are: +2 to move, +1 toughness, Advance and Charge, or Stealth. Two notes here: one, it explicitly allows you to select units that are in transports, and there are no keyword restrictions. We would expect that the latter part of this gets corrected, but for the moment you can choose an ally unit to have the HALO OVERRIDE keyword.

This feels extremely strong at first glance; on-demand buffs to some of the most important stats (Toughness, Movement) when combined with the flexibility of Doctrina Imperatives, and then also the option to have two units a turn advance and charging feels like this just might be an A+ detachment for Adeptus Mechanicus.

Enhancements

As per usual, four enhancements are available to the Adeptus Mechanicus in this detachment. Two of them feel like auto-takes depending on the list, one is situationally very good, and the last is a bit of a joke but that’s okay because you can only take three enhancements in your army.

• Transoracular Dyad Wafers [30 pts] – (Cybernetica Datasmith) gives HALO OVERRIDE and Doctrina Imperatives to its unit when attached at the start of the battle. Is this what finally makes Kastelan Robots worth taking? They get the second half of this in the Cohort Cybernetica, which is a neat detachment focused on buffing vehicles more than just the Kastelans, but this is really interesting as it also gives them the HALO OVERRIDE keyword for the game, meaning you now have three units a turn that are being buffed. With Aegis Protocols this would push a Kastelan to T11 – quite the annoying breakpoint to hit for many armies.
• Cognitive Reinforcement (no Cybernetica Datasmith) [35 pts] – The bearer’s unit has both the Conqueror and Protector Imperatives active. Smart of them to deny the Datasmith this enhancement, or you could make a truly nasty deathstar with 2 Datasmiths leading a single unit of Kastelans. Otherwise this enhancement seems pricey at 35 points, but could be very powerful on a character leading Kataphron Breachers or Destroyers.
• Sanctified Ordnance [10 pts] – Increase the range of ranged weapons equipped by the bearer’s unit by 6”, and they can reroll Hazardous Tests. This seems designed to go with Kataphron Destroyers with Plasma Culverins. Extra range is always nice, but I think the previous enhancement brings a lot more to that same unit.
• Inloaded Lethality [15 pts] – +3A and +1 to the bearer’s melee weapons. It’s a relic axe for a Tech-priest which is cute but not particularly interesting. Maybe something interesting in Crusade?

Transoracular Dyad Wafers is something I want to hear a pronunciation guide for, and I think makes a unit of Kastelan Robots the core of most lists using this detachment. Kastelans gaining Doctrina Imperatives remains a meme to me because they should’ve had it from the start, but this is a nice way to get them in addition to always having whatever Override is currently active for the army.

Stratagems

The Stratagems in here are all excellent for nearly every Adeptus Mechanicus unit, with most of them focusing on increasing the army’s output or giving additional mobility.

• Eradication Protocols (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – Your Shooting phase or the Fight phase; target one Adeptus Mechanicus unit from your army. They reroll wound rolls of 1, and if it is a HALO OVERRIDE unit, reroll hit rolls of 1. On demand re-rolls in this army is definitely something else – the army tends to be fairly light on these outside of Skitarii Marshals and Kataphron Breachers.
• Targeting Override (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – Your Shooting phase or the Fight phase; one Adeptus Mechanicus unit gains Critical Hits on 5+. So many uses for this: any unit being led by a Tech-Priest Manipulus, Corpuscarii Electro-priests, any taser-equipped unit, etc.
• Neural Overload (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Your Movement Phase; one unit gains an Override ability – if they already have the HALO OVERRIDE keyword, then they take d3 mortal wounds. This does allow having 2 different active Overrides on the same unit. The timing on this is especially useful since it allows you to react to things like a failed battle shock test at the end of your command phase, or to a nasty overwatch that causes you to change game plan mid-movement phase, or even stacking +2 move and advance and charge on a unit.
• Aggressive Impulse (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Your Movement phase; target a Skorpius Dunerider – the embarked units can charge after disembarking from the transport after it has made a Normal Move. This one’s just silly – now you can load up 3 duneriders with Ruststalkers; the first two get Advance and Charge from the Halo Override, the third uses this and now you have 30 ruststalkers that go an average of 15” and charge.
• Guided Retreat (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Your Movement phase; gives shoot & charge after having fallen back; if it is a HALO OVERRIDE unit you can reroll Desperate Escape tests. I feel like the HALO OVERRIDE bonus should have been being able to do both, if not choose one. This stratagem is wildly powerful in a detachment that already plays with movement, something fierce.
• Analytical Divination (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Your opponent’s Movement phase, just after an enemy unit ends a Normal, Advance, or Fall Back move. Gives an Infantry unit (except Kataphrons) a d6” reactive move, 6” if the unit selected has the HALO OVERRIDE keyword. Everyone loves a good reactive move – except for the opponent that is.

Overall a great suite of Stratagems, definitely some very interesting builds opened up by these with the Detachment rule and their army rule. Probably the most powerful one here is Guided Retreat, as this keeps valuable units from being bogged down by a tarpit unit.

Playing This Detachment

Simply put, this Detachment is going to lean on many of the same units that have seen extensive play in the codex to date, with potentially some play for Kastelan Robots. 

Strengths

• Flexible detachment that allows you to buff any unit in the codex.
• Great suite of stratagems, lacking the usual restrictions that Adeptus Mechanicus players have grown used to.
• Defensive as well as offensive buffs available to all units.

Weaknesses

• Probably worse than Skitarii Hunter Cohort, as you have to choose defensive (Toughness, Stealth) or offensive (+2” Movement, Advance and Charge) buffs on key units while the rest of your army only has their base datasheet.
• Adeptus Mechanicus lacks solid melee units outside of Ruststalkers – which fare better in Skitarii Hunter Cohort – and this detachment feels like it’s trying to push melee more.

A Sample List

Alright, this might be a hear me out list, but I think it could be quite fun. So let’s start with a couple Corpuscarii electro-priest units and a Kataphron brick and go from there. (This originally started with a Kastelan brick but they are still so pricey and easily move blocked as this author found out…)

The list - click to expand

Two Corpuscarii bricks in duneriders with a Manipulus to give them lethal hits (with access to Critical Hits on 5’s from Targeting Override). The Warlord joins the Kataphron Breachers squad and sits mid-field to cause issues for the opponent. Some Vanguard for scoring / primary denial / to power up the datasheets that need Battleline nearby, and a few other units round out the list.

Final Thoughts

The Haloscreed Battle Clade detachment brings a fresh, versatile option to Adeptus Mechanicus players, offering significant flexibility in unit selection and playstyle. It showcases excellent stratagems and enhancements, emphasizing mobility, offensive buffs, and tactical adaptability. While it doesn’t entirely outshine the Skitarii Hunter Cohort, it opens up intriguing new possibilities for army composition, particularly for those who want to explore previously underutilized units like Kastelan Robots. We believe that it’s likely to be the second strongest of the Adeptus Mechanicus Detachments.

As the holiday season progresses and more detachments are revealed, it will be fascinating to see how the Haloscreed Battle Clade stacks up against the rest. Merry Grotmas, and may the Omnissiah guide your rolls!

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