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 Skitarii Hunter Cohort Detachment for the Adeptus Mechanicus.
The Skitarii Hunter Cohort focuses on the other, more militant half of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Forget those weirdos in the Cult Mechanicus – let them scour the galaxy for whatever ancient doodads and trinkets they can find. There’s wars to be waged, and that’s where the Skitarii come in! This Detachment offers one of the more competitive faces of the Adeptus Mechanicus, providing buffs for the faction’s best units on top of some solid Enhancements and Stratagems.
Detachment Overview
Welcome apex Adeptus Mechanicus in 10th Edition. Back in 9th edition, we had a magical set of rules called the Sktarii Veteran Cohort, which could take the otherwise strong Adeptus Mechanicus Codex to another level in the hands of a skilled player (Rob: Which Siegler did, winning the US Opens in Orlando, New Orleans, and then eventually LVO and the ITC title for the 2022 season), combining a deep toolbox of tricks with devastating damage.
Unfortunately, the Skitarii Hunter Cohort doesn’t have the same magic. There’s still a nice set of tricks here and some unique tools, but the Detachment lacks the raw power of what you could get last edition.
That said, this is by far the best way to play the Adeptus Mechanicus playstyle in 10th edition. And the reason is simple: The army just can’t match the damage output of most of the other armies in the game. But what the army does have access to in spades is access to relatively cheap and annoying-to-kill units which are relatively fast, i.e. most Skitarii units. When you combine the layers of defense available to Skitarii units in this Detachment with their baseline stats and points costs of those units, you can start to create a very annoying problem for enemy armies. Opponents are forced to ask how many of their real damage resources do they want to commit to killing Skitarii units like Sicarians, which can be Stealth (-1 to hit at range), -1 to hit in melee, with a 5+ invulnerable save, a 5+ Feel no Pain, and 2 wounds apiece.
As a whole, the Adeptus Mechanicus are about limiting enemy mobility, using delaying tactics to tie up enemy units, and focusing down the easiest to kill enemy resources to remove their ability to play the mission. And Skitarii Hunter Cohort not only accepts that mission, but does so methodically and professionally when played in a certain manner.
Detachment Rule: Stealth Optimisation
Skitarii Infantry, Skitari Mounted and Ironstrider Ballistarii units from your arm have the Stealth ability, and each time a ranged attack targets a Sicarian unit from your army, unless the attacking model is within 12”, the target has the benefit of cover against that attack.
The second half of this rule almost never comes up; it’s a bit of a waste of space. But the first half, stealth on the vast majority of Skitarii units for free? That’s absolutely game-changing. All of a sudden if the enemy unit targeting our Skitarii unit does not have access to the ability to re-roll hits or, even worse, has a bad ballistic skill characteristic (such as a 4+ or 5+), your Skitarii unit is unlikely to take much damage. When you extrapolate this rule to nearly an entire army, it can become daunting for enemy armies to try to chew through all of the Sicarians, Pteraxii, and other Skitarii you’ll put in their way.
Enhancements
All of these Enhancements are limited to Skitarii characters, which means Marshals or Skatros, and two are Marshal-only. Both of those also want you to be on the table (i.e. not in a transport) to get the most out of them, limiting their effectiveness.
- Cantic Thrallnet (25 Points) – Marshal only. At the start of the Battle Round, you can give a Skitarii unit within 12” of the bearer both the Protector and Conqueror imperatives until the next battle round. With the upgrade to army rule imperatives in June 2024, this enhancement gained a new lease on life as both Protector and Conqueror are very useful for different types of units and having both elevates some of our key units. Its downside is that if you’re using it then the Marshal holding it is not inside a Dunerider and thus is not preparing to disembark and combine his full re-rolls to hit with the Dunerider’s re-roll wounds ability to create a very efficient damage package. If that doesn’t matter to you, or you are running a Protector list with multiple large units of Sterylizors or Sicarians, then this is very useful. Likewise it’s good for a Conqueror list using three-model Ironstrider units or Skorpius Disintegrators.
- Clandestine Infiltrator (20 Points) – The bearer and their unit gain the Infiltrators and Scouts 6” abilities. Before the June 2024 update, when our damage was completely pitiful instead of below average, I used to run this enhancement to start the early game move blocking from turn 1, just because every enemy army would just run at you immediately. Now this is not mandatory, but it is still nice with a Marshal in a Ranger squad that can sticky two midfield objectives immediately against elite armies which aren’t prepared to touch every objective immediately.
- Veiled Hunter (10 Points) – Marshal only. After deployment but before rolling to determine the first turn, you can redeploy up to three Skitarii infantry units including into Strategic reserves even if that would exceed the usual limit. With the Codex this allowed you to redeploy after knowing who was going first meaning you could place the Clandestine Infiltrator unit, and Sicarian Infiltrators very aggressively and if you went second, you could simply redeploy them to safety. The game-wide change to redeploy abilities happening before knowing who is going first reduced the power of this ability. Since this Detachment has a stratagem to go back into reserves its not as needed to bring Pteraxii back up into deep strike. It’s mostly used to place an Infiltrator unit aggressively to deny infiltration space to the opponent, and then redeploy it to safety. Is that worth a Marshal being on the table outside a transport? I don’t think so most of the time.
- Battle-Sphere Uplink (30 Points) – In your Shooting phase the bearer and their unit can make a normal move of 6” after shooting if there are no enemy units within Engagement range. This unit can not charge in the same turn. This is by far the best enhancement and an auto-take. Moving in the shooting phase is a great tool to get around scary overwatch threats that would be used in the movement phase. Or let’s say the enemy blocks a midfield objective with durable units and you can’t quite kill the whole unit but you can kill some of it. Once you blow a hole in the enemy unit you can fire the Battle-Sphere Uplink (BSU) unit and get onto the objective. But ultimately its best use is on a Marshal with Vanguard in a Dunerider which can pop out every turn to shoot something and then in the shooting phase re-embark into the transport (because it’s a different phase we are embarking back into it), and potentially benefit from the ability to re-roll wounds again the next turn. Additionally, by having this free floating unit, you create a situation where you can benefit from the various battleline aura buffs in your shooting phase and then keep that battleline unit safe for next turn by using BSU to get it back behind terrain or into a Dunerider. This enhancement is amazing.
Credit: Pendulin
Stratagems
As you might expect, these Stratagems target either all Skitarii units or specific units with the Skitarii keyword.
- Bionic Endurance (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Used in your opponent’s shooting phase, just after they pick a target. One Sicarian, Pteraxii, or Sydonian unit selected as a target can gain a Feel No Pain 5+ until the end of the phase. This is one of the best stratagems in the AdMech Codex. This is your most-used stratagem and it takes a ten-man unit of Sicarians or Pteraxii from a relatively annoying-to-kill unit to something with huge damage soaking potential. Before the June 2024 update I would use this on Dragoons, but since those have gone up in cost I mostly use it on Sicarians and Pteraxii now.
- Isolate and Destroy (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Used in your Shooting phase. Models in one Sicarian, Pteraxxi, Sydonian, Ironstrider Ballistarii, or Skitarii Mounted unit from your army can add 1 to wound rolls if there are no enemy units within 6” of the unit they’re targeting. Once you explain how this Stratagem works to your opponent, you will never get to use it. It’s absolutely silly to have the qualifier that the enemy can’t have another unit within 6″ of your target. The use case for this is so narrow that I have never used it a single time in over a hundred SHC games.
- Binharic Offence (Strategic Ploy, 2 CP) – Used at the start of your Shooting phase or the start of the Fight phase. Pick an enemy unit. Two Skitarii units improve the the AP of their weapons by 1 until the end of the phase, but they can only attack that unit. Two CP is quite pricey for an army with unreliable CP regeneration abilities and no guaranteed additional CP generation each command phase. This can be used on Skitarii Marshal + Vanguard units popping out of Duneriders, Disintegrators, Sterylizors or Dunecrawlers with Phospher to good effect, but its hard to save the CP for this over Bionic Endurance, Rapid Ingress, and Programmed Withdrawal. If the game will come down to whether you can kill a specific enemy unit, you might use it then, or if you save up CP in the early game.
- Shroud Protocols (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Used in your opponent’s Shooting phase, after they pick targets. One of your Skitarii units that has been selected as a target can only be selected as the target of ranged attacks if it is within 18” of the attacking model. This used to be 12” before the game-wide change to pseudo lone operative stratagems. At 18” it is still good, but not as spam-able and omnipresent as it was before. It’s great against indirect fire or if you string a unit back away from the enemy you can find moments where they killed several models, but the remainder of your unit is now outside of 18” of their next damage unit and you can keep your unit alive.
- Expedited Purge Protocols (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Used in your Charge phase. One Skitarii unit can charge in the same turn it advanced. This is a great Stratagem to use to mobilize a Skitarii unit to tie up enemy units, contest objectives or kill something with Sicarians. Our combat units are not amazing at combat, what you’re really paying for here is the extra movement. What hurts this is the prevalence of Fights First in the meta and the change to Heroic Intervention – going from 2 CP to 1 CP makes it much easier for opponents to counter-charge and punish you.
- Programmed Withdrawal (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Used at the end of your opponent’s Fight phase. Up to two Sicarian units, or 1 Skitarii Infantry or Skitarii Mounted unit can be removed from the battlefield and placed in Strategic Reserves. The units selected must be more than 3” away from any enemy units. This is sneakily the second best Stratagem here. The ability to redeploy Skystalker units across the board throughout the game opens up a ton of plays for your army and forces the enemy to always have their backfield covered or risk opening up plenty of points scoring potential for you there.
This is a good suite of stratagems – three great options, two solid and useful ones, and one stinker in Isolate and Destroy. The only thing holding back this set of stratagems is the fact that we don’t have an Imotek or Azreal or Calgar that guarantees additional CP to reliably use all of these stratagems throughout a game. It’s very hard to be disciplined and only use the ones that you absolutely need at that moment. You have to plan for the future turns with this Detachment or you will miss out on key plays and combos later on.
Playing This Detachment
This is not an easy Detachment to play. If you are used to playing Ninth Edition Adeptus Mechanicus or playing AdMech after having experienced other Tenth Edition factions you will very quickly realize that if you allow your opponent to get to mid-board in the early game, it is very hard to win. Likewise, our army simply does less damage than most other factions. You need to ignore the most obvious Warhammer instinct – which is to kill your opponent first and ask questions (i.e. score points), later. This just won’t work most of the time – our units just simply lack the killing power and efficiency of other armies. This sucks and I hate it, but what it means is that you’ll have to lean heavily on the army’s strengths – mobility, having a lot of units, and stacking defensive abilities to make your units significantly more difficult to kill quickly.
To play Skitarii Hunter Cohort well, you need to first understand how important it is to delay the enemy early. Use your Infiltrators or Serberys Raiders to slow down the enemy advance and keep them pinned back while you secure midfield objectives. The next layer is Pteraxii Skystalkers, Sterylizors, or more Sicarians. The final wave in the late game is using Skitarii Vanguard units to manipulate OC and dominate the remaining vehicles/monsters by making it too difficult for them to take back objectives. This is the plan, but the details and how you go about doing it changes from game to game based on terrain, enemy list and rules, and which of the Skitarii units you have remaining.
In Conqueror you continue this plan throughout every turn of the game sacrificing anything that is needed for the plan to work while contesting as many enemy objectives as you can while keeping their units stuck in combat. In Protector you sacrifice units to allow your tanks to kill enough of the enemy army that they no longer have a late game capable of killing enough of your units, reducing your number of disposable units, but significantly increasing damage output.
Strengths
- Excellent stacking of defensive abilities to force over-commitments from the enemy
- Outstanding mobility and scoring potential.
- Boasts the best Admech enhancement in Battle-Sphere Uplink.
Weaknesses
- So many good stratagems that it is hard to use all of them when you need to.
- Few reasonable ways (sorry Isolate and Destroy) to enhance damage output without a significant cost (2CP for Binharic Offensive, Cantic Thrallnet requires a Marshal just standing around all game, etc).
- Out of respect for our best Detachment I’m going to leave this blank just to let the other ones know they need to step up their game.
A Sample List
As mentioned above, Skitarii Hunter Cohort can benefit from either a Protector- or Conqueror-focused list. For the former, you prioritize using Sicarians and Pteraxii to slow down the enemy while Skorpius Disintegrators, Onagers and Dunerider packages deal ranged damage. If you lean Conqueror then you largely shift to running less tanks and significantly more units sending wave after wave to delay, harass, and deny the enemy movement options. Below are two sample lists, one for each style. We’ll start with the Protector variant.
Richard’s Protector SHC List - click to expand Adeptus Mechanicus CHARACTERS Skitarii Marshal (65 points) 1x Mechanicus pistol Technoarcheologist (45 points) 1x Servo-arc claw Technoarcheologist (45 points) 1x Servo-arc claw BATTLELINE Skitarii Rangers (85 points) 1x Close combat weapon 1x Galvanic rifle 9x Close combat weapon 6x Galvanic rifle 1x Omnispex 1x Plasma caliver 1x Transuranic arquebus Skitarii Rangers (85 points) 1x Close combat weapon 1x Galvanic rifle 9x Close combat weapon 6x Galvanic rifle 1x Omnispex 1x Plasma caliver 1x Transuranic arquebus Skitarii Vanguard (95 points) 1x Close combat weapon 1x Radium carbine 9x Close combat weapon 1x Omnispex 1x Plasma caliver 6x Radium carbine 1x Transuranic arquebus Skitarii Vanguard (95 points) 1x Close combat weapon 1x Radium carbine 9x Close combat weapon 1x Omnispex 1x Plasma caliver 6x Radium carbine 1x Transuranic arquebus DEDICATED TRANSPORTS Skorpius Dunerider (85 points) 1x Cognis heavy stubber array OTHER DATASHEETS Onager Dunecrawler (155 points) 1x Dunecrawler legs 1x Twin Onager heavy phosphor blaster Onager Dunecrawler (155 points) 1x Dunecrawler legs 1x Twin Onager heavy phosphor blaster Pteraxii Skystalkers (140 points) 1x Taser goad 9x Flechette carbine Pteraxii Skystalkers (140 points) 1x Taser goad 9x Flechette carbine Pteraxii Skystalkers (70 points) 1x Taser goad 4x Flechette carbine Sicarian Infiltrators (140 points) 1x Taser goad 9x Taser goad Sicarian Infiltrators (70 points) 1x Taser goad 4x Taser goad Skorpius Disintegrator (175 points) 3x Cognis heavy stubber 1x Disruptor missile launcher 1x Ferrumite cannon Skorpius Disintegrator (175 points) 3x Cognis heavy stubber 1x Disruptor missile launcher 1x Ferrumite cannon Skorpius Disintegrator (175 points) 3x Cognis heavy stubber 1x Disruptor missile launcher 1x Ferrumite cannon
Strike Force (2000 points)
Skitarii Hunter Cohort
And here’s the Conqueror variant.
Richard’s Conqueror SHC List - click to expand Adeptus Mechanicus CHARACTERS Skitarii Marshal (65 points) 1x Mechanicus pistol Skitarii Marshal (45 points) 1x Mechanicus pistol Skitarii Marshal (35 points) 1x Mechanicus pistol BATTLELINE Skitarii Rangers (85 points) 1x Close combat weapon 1x Mechanicus pistol 9x Close combat weapon 6x Galvanic rifle 1x Omnispex 1x Plasma caliver 1x Transuranic arquebus Skitarii Vanguard (95 points) 1x Close combat weapon 1x Radium carbine 9x Close combat weapon 1x Omnispex 1x Plasma caliver 6x Radium carbine 1x Transuranic arquebus Skitarii Vanguard (95 points) 1x Close combat weapon 1x Radium carbine 9x Close combat weapon 1x Omnispex 1x Plasma caliver 6x Radium carbine 1x Transuranic arquebus Skitarii Vanguard (95 points) 1x Close combat weapon 1x Radium carbine 9x Close combat weapon 1x Omnispex 1x Plasma caliver 6x Radium carbine 1x Transuranic arquebus DEDICATED TRANSPORTS Skorpius Dunerider (85 points) 1x Cognis heavy stubber array Skorpius Dunerider (85 points) 1x Cognis heavy stubber array Skorpius Dunerider (85 points) 1x Cognis heavy stubber array OTHER DATASHEETS Pteraxii Skystalkers (70 points) 1x Taser goad 4x Flechette carbine Pteraxii Skystalkers (140 points) 1x Taser goad 9x Flechette carbine Pteraxii Skystalkers (140 points) 1x Taser goad 9x Flechette carbine Pteraxii Sterylizors (160 points) 1x Pteraxii talons 1x Taser goad 9x Pteraxii talons Pteraxii Sterylizors (80 points) 1x Pteraxii talons 1x Taser goad 4x Pteraxii talons Pteraxii Sterylizors (80 points) 1x Pteraxii talons 1x Taser goad 4x Pteraxii talons Serberys Raiders (60 points) 1x Galvanic carbine 1x Mechanicus pistol 1x Enhanced data-tether 2x Galvanic carbine Sicarian Infiltrators (140 points) 1x Taser goad 9x Taser goad Sicarian Infiltrators (70 points) 1x Taser goad 4x Taser goad Sicarian Infiltrators (140 points) 1x Taser goad 9x Taser goad Sicarian Ruststalkers (150 points)
Strike Force (2000 points)
Skitarii Hunter Cohort
The Protector list is very similar to the one I played at the World Championships of Warhammer in November, securing a top 8 finish for the Adeptus Mechanicus. The list played brilliantly on many different terrain layouts from the hyper dense layout #7 to the lighter layout #2. Before June 2024, I ran almost exclusively Conqueror lists to trade on objectives and pin my opponent back turn after turn.
This plan can sometimes be fragile and especially if you need to charge to make it to a certain place, it can be difficult against the combat armies prevalent now that have easy access to 1CP heroic intervention, fight first rules, and units with much greater durability and damage than ours. I prefer, personally, to bring more damage in the form of the tanks and really lean into the durability aspect of my frontline troops providing them with that underrated -1 to hit in combat when near battleline Skitarii in Protector. Regardless, both styles are perfectly viable in Skitarii Hunter Cohort!
Final Thoughts
Is this Detachment perfect? No, far from it – but it’s the best we have by a good margin (even with Haloscreed, in my opinion). This Detachment stands out because it not only has a good Detachment rule, good enhancements, and good stratagems, but those strong rules synergize with the Adeptus Mechanicus datasheets and the points values of those units. It doubles down on subpar, but cheap and annoying to kill units (when defensive rules are applied) that is the major theme of the Codex as whole, whether intended or not. Skitarii units are by far the best in this role and having a Detachment elevate them to this degree makes for our strongest playstyle in the hands of an experienced player.
What Admech needs is an alternative playstyle that is largely focused on damage rather than defense, and elevates our units to damage dealers rather than even more annoying for the enemy to kill. Haloscreed seems to be an attempt at this, but it doesn’t provide enough damage buffs to most of our units and our damage dealing units are simply overcosted for how they currently perform on the table. Opening up a second, strong and damage oriented Admech play style should be the focus of the design team’s next balance patch so playing Admech well doesn’t feel like you need an astrophysics degree.
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