Dear meatbag, I’ve been deep in the mines for this one. I have learnt lots of new words for this article: Thallax, Artlalax, Betamax, Snorlax, Syntax, Ursurax, Climax, Castellax, Tampax, Anthrax, Kallax, Scyllax, Battleaxe, Thorax, Beeswax, Vorax, Kneecaps, Moirax, Lorax, Antivax, Vulturax, Nicknacks. 

Everyone. Relax.  I may not speak for the trees, but I am starting to understand Warhammer, the Horus Heresy, Age of Darkness. 

There’s two things you need to understand about how Mechanicum plays. The first one was said to me by my mate Matt, a veteran Mechanicum player, who told me confidently that a novice Mechanicum pilot will almost always lose to a novice Marine pilot, but an expert Mechanicum pilot will wipe the floor with an equally experienced Marine pilot. Mechanicum are fucking complicated, gamers. Including the Traitor-locked stuff, there’s now like 11 different Techno-Arcana orders, tons of weird wargear, warlord traits, and more Cybertheurgies than you can shake 100101 sticks at. Your biggest advantage should you replace your human heart with a nuclear reactor is that, most of the time, your opponent won’t know what you’re going to do next. The only issue is that you might not know either.

The second thing you need to know about the Mechanicum is that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and these little metal men, women and non-binaries really do have a couple of rabbits up their sleeves. A recent GW promo video described the Mechanicum as an undead legion, complete with bio-mechnical zombies, automata skeletons and your wizardly tech-priest liches and necromancers. 

None of the units in this book are straight up mad by themselves, but once you start layering bullshit onto them, things get complicated mighty fast. As they get more complicated, they get more powerful and more confusing for you and your opponent. If you close your eyes and believe, it’s actually brilliant and effective game design.

Come with me as we venture with our metallic protagonists on this journey of techno-archeological discovery into this sacred tome full of STCs and unholy wards. 

Don’t know the difference between an Abeyant and a Machinator? Can’t remember which is an incunabulan jet pack and an utan jump booster? Unsure whether you want phases on your plasma fusils, or if a photon thruster is a gun or a jet pack? Do you want to Porta Fractis that vehicle or use Animatus Integro? Should one Malagra or Reductor their Archmagos to synergise with a horde list? It’s okay, dear reader. You’re going to be alright. I didn’t either when I started writing this article. I could have guessed, but I wouldn’t have been certain. Now I know the dark and terrible ways of the machine-god, and so will you by the end. 

Mechanicum are bloody weird. One article won’t cover it all, so we’re going to break it up into two chunks. First we’re going to start with the units. Let’s learn together! 

Thanks to Incy, Max (@smogblack), RealSnice, and Chris (@tangenticool_miniatures) for their help and feedback.

Key Principles

Cybernetica? I hardly know her! A lot of your Automata have the Cybernetica subtype, granting a whole load of provisions that basically grant max Firing Protocols and Relentless, as well as the Frag Grenades effect. The main caveat is that Cybernetica are subject to Programmed Behaviour, which means they have to shoot/charge the nearest unit in the relevant phases. This is circumvented by units with Cortex Controllers, which allows any unit within 12” to act normally . This means you’re reliant on your various Tech Priests to herd your robots or they start being unhelpful. This also means you have to castle up around your HQ units, and your various Fast Attacks skirmishers can’t go too far out or they’re pretty much useless. 

Also, basically every Cybernetica unit has an Atomantic Deflector. I’m writing it once here so I don’t have to write it every time. 

HQ

Hahaha. You thought I was going to start here? Not a chance. You clowns are going to get a whole article about being a robot wizard in the next 1-3 weeks. Come back once you’ve realised the weakness of your flesh and earned 2:1 Bachelor’s degree in being made of metal, then I’ll walk you through the Archmagos and the Magos Dominus, and their Abeyant variants. We’ll go through the Techpriest Auxilia then, too.

Troops

Adsecularis Tech-Thralls Covenants

You never used to see these because of the absurd price/points ratio, but the new plastic kit means there’ll be lots of these around. At 45 points for the first 10, and 3 points thereafter. They’re a standard guardsman-esque profile, with a 6+ armour save, a 5+ FNP and Stubborn. Their substandard WS and BS of 2 is made up in melee by Hatred (Everything), but their laslocks ain’t going to do much damage. They can’t react thanks to the Rite of Pure Thought. Las locks do a little bit of damage, but these poor little braindead zombie serfs mainly sit back and hold objectives with Line, and screen stuff worth real points. 

How to Buff Them 

The main way to buff this is with a Lachrimallus Tech Priest Auxilia, who improves their FNP to 4+ if they’re within 6”. You can also buff them with a Warhound Titan to make any units with 24” of it Fearless. Sadly, if it explodes they will all die, which will be funny and a blow to your chances of victory. 

Comrade realSnice suggests adding a Secutarii Axiarch from an allied Titan Legion attachment to give them LD9 alongside their Stubborn. 

Thallax Cohort

One of the best units in all of thirty thousand of the w’hammers. Thallax have 3 wounds, T5, a 4+ save and FNP 6+, making them a really difficult profile to shift for 40 points a model. Lascannons don’t instant death them, anything with high AP is wasted, and when was the last time you saw a heavy bolter HSS in 30k?

They’re armed with Lightning Guns at BS4, with two profiles, either a 3 shot S4 version (that is pretty useless unless you’re fighting T3 infantry) or a S7 Rending (4+) version. You can also upgrade 1 in 3 with an array of special weapons, with Multi-meltas (for very mobile anti-tank), plasma fusils (for when 3+ save models must die) or Photon thrusters (for a cheeky bit of blind) being the standout. 

These little cyborgs have incunabulan jump packs, which boost their move to 13”, give them relentless and a mischievous little move-shoot-move of 6”. Move-shoot-move is pretty good in a game that basically doesn’t have any other move-shoot-move. What’s more, you can perform this movement at any point in the shooting phase after you’ve shot. Nothing is stopping you from attempting a ‘shoot’ action, and finding out there are no models in range or line of sight. This means you can always just move them even if they have no targets. 

Djinn-Sight is also neat, meaning Cover Saves are reduced by 2 and Infiltrators can’t be set up within 24”. Tasty. 

The only issue with them is they’re pants in melee, but they also add 6” to the movement of any movement based reaction. If the unit is ever under threat of a charge, you can just have them react 8” away from whichever mean, mean marine wants to bully them. 

How to Buff Them

You don’t need to. They’re ace. Just don’t expect them to do big damage. Most of the tech-priest stuff keys of Automata and these are just cyborgs. They run around, grabbing objectives, doing decent damage, and reacting away to safety. If you want to buff them up, you can add an incunabulan jump pack to a Archmagos (annoyingly not a Dominus) full of ranged weapons for a unit that can fly around fixing things or blowing them up, but I reckon the HQ may be better spent elsewhere. There are a few Infantry buffing powers hidden inside the Lacyrymata Techno-Arcana, but I would prefer to use these powers buffing Myrmidons (or just stick to improving your Automata). 

Scyllax Guardian-Automata Maniple 

Just some little guys with solid stats, rad-furnaces, kraken bolters and a combat array with two attack modes, Scyllax’s job is to keep tech-priests safe. They have the Guardian keyword, which means you get to assign wounds, even if Sniper or Precisions shots come in. For a minimal price, you can give them some modest firepower on the cheap with rotor cannons, volkites or flamers firing with Night Vision, plus your usual special weapons. Just make sure you bring a character, so that the Guardian subtype helps you overwatch things to death, as it overrides the Automata clause. They also pack a soft yet points-efficient punch in combat, since Rad Furnace gives them +1 to wound and the combat array has some good profiles. 

A note, the Guardian sub-type means they get significantly worse without a Character leading them, which is a shame.  

How to Buff Them

Give ‘em reactions with Cybernetica Exortus for some nasty tech-priest protecting overwatch. Weirdly, they’re one of the few units for buffing up tech-priests, not the other way around. Adding Night Vision to a conversion beamer armed Archmagos goes quite hard. I really like these with an Arquitor Magisterium. 

Castellax Battle-Automata Maniple 

Our big metal stompy meat and potatoes. There’s a choice of big gun, either a mauler bolt cannon, darkfire cannon or multi-melta, all of which are good, but the mauler is cheapest. The melee weapons are either the S7 AP3 Shock Charge, or the S7 AP4 with Breaching (5+) Power Blade array, or losing an attack to replace one of them with a nasty Siege Wrecker, for S10 AP2, Brutal (2) attacks with Sunder, Wrecker, Specialist Weapon. Generally, you don’t want these guys in combat since they’re only WS3, so I’d stick with one of the multi-attack weapons. You either want a single model blasting things, or a big big unit benefitting from lots of buffs. 

How to Buff Them 

Have a Character join them to rip everything up. Give them Line with the Cybernetica High-Order of the Techno-Arcana, which you can also use to buff up their shooting against units in cover with multiple Cortex Controllers. 

All the normal automata buffing power works. You can heal them with Battlesmith. For a big unit, make ‘em shoot good with Master Technomancer from Archimandrite, or speed ‘em up, buff their shooting, make ’em tankier or let them react with Cybernetica Exortus from the Cybernetica Cybertheurgy. 

Elites

Arcuitor Magisterium 

Our first confusing unit is an extremely weird Loyalist locked 0-1 tech assassin unit. Equipped with a selection of tech-priest looking weapons, Precision Strike (5+) and Monster Hunter. Sadly, it doesn’t have any Infiltrate or Deep Strike shenanigans, so it is left leading an Infantry unit, likely some kind of Myrmidons, since they don’t have the rules that allow them to join Automata. The unit is only I4, so strikes behind most of the characters with its 2 attacks with a Corposant Stave or Paragon Blade, but without the instant death of something Unwieldy. I’d consider grabbing a Machinator Array for full violence. 

You can give it a friendly Vorax or Artalax as a bodyguard, but the main usage is using Independent Character to pass on Monster Hunter to a unit of infantry (it can’t join other Automata), making either class of Myrmidons real good at killing Primarchs, Dreadnoughts, Monstrous Creatures and other Automata. The bad news is that Myrmidons are already pretty expensive and don’t need the help. They also lack the Firing Protocols to make use of the full array of potential guns available with an archeotech pistol, machinator array and optional special weapons. 

This unit turns a unit of plasma Secutors into a Dreadnought murdering force, with re-rolls to hit from Hatred (Everything) in melee and re-rolls to wound from Monster Unit. Or, just re-roll to wound with the plasma fusils at range to slice through contemptors like they’re not even there. 

How to Buff Them

The Malagra Order of the High Techno Arcana lets you take up to 3 of these as a single HQ choice, and also opens up the option for them to have Prehensile Data Spikes that can give a Reach (2), Breaching (4+) and Murderous Strike (6+) attack for a 10pt upgrade. Spicy. At that point, a lad with a machinator array, archeotech pistol, meltagun and prehensile data spike will set you back 120pts and ruin the day of anyone who tries to charge a bit unit of Myrmidons. 

Domitar Battle-Automata Maniple

The middle of the three traditional classes of robot mech, the Domitar has refreshingly few weapon options and clocks in at 145pt. They’re WS4 and BS3, and swing at 5 attacks on the charge at I3 with their Graviton Hammers. At range, this is a template Graviton Weapon, whereas in melee it is a S10 AP2 weapon with Armourbane (Melee) and Concussive (2). Lacking any Brutal, this might lose with a Dreadnough if one could ever get in without being overwatched to death. It still ruins the day of a lot of things with S10 graviton hammers, especially since charges against them count as Disordered. It has a missile launcher and a searchlight as sidearms.

Defensively, we have 5 wounds at T7, with a 3+ save and an Atomantic Deflector. Solid, but not impressive compared to other units in its weight class. 

How to Buff Them

Your big boys will wreck any vehicle or soft infantry they charge at a few lads a turn, while being difficult to wound on the return. The issue then becomes enemy melee units or dreadnoughts, as Brutal (3) will clear an Automata pretty fast. 

If you can get this unit to react, the Graviton Hammer template attack will put out 2D3 Haywire hits per Domitar while within their Wall of Death, which is pretty tasty. Thus, they become a high priority for Cybernetica Exortus. Overwatch reactions are a gimme here, but choosing between +1 to hit and ignoring the first wound is always a challenge. 

One of these is a good candidate Paragon of Metal, since the extra WS and Wound helps and Precision Strikes (4+) might severely ruin a HQ unit’s day. That said, you can’t target them with Cybertheurgies then and that’s a shame. 

Myrmidon Secutors

These are nuts. A unit of these with phased-plasma fusils or graviton guns is really likely to delete anything it looks at, and will eat up your reactions since it is one of the few units in the list which can react without effective buffs. 

Myrmidon axes come in at WS4, S7, AP2 with Unwieldy and Hatred (Everything) in melee, pushing out 4 attacks each on the charge. At ranged, you’re looking at a pair of maxima bolters (no), volkite chargers (solid), i-rad cleaners (okay), graviton guns (tasty for shredding dreadnoughts, vehicles and automata with Haywire) or plasma guns (pure filth at AP3 with Breaching (4+)), all firing with BS5. 

Defensively they’re hard to shift, with T5 and W4, with a 3+ and 5++. They’re a pain to deal with, a menace in an assault vehicle like a Land Raider or Macrocarid Explorator, and even better in a cheaper Triaros. You can’t really go wrong.  

How to Buff Them 

Cybernetica Exortus is your main buffing power, which doesn’t work on these low ranking Reductor techpriests. 

If you pair them with a Archmagos with rad grenades to reduce enemy toughness, the axes will Instant Death marines! Or use a Secutarii Axiarch to give them rad grenades AND preferred enemy infantry. 

Give them Monster Hunter with the Arcuitor Magisterium to vanish Dreadnoughts and Monstrous units. Alternatively, a Secutaari Axiarch can grant them Preferred Enemy (Infantry) but this is truly hateful.

You can get them up the board with Ephemera Instigare, which allows them to move 4” extra in the shooting phase, but if you put an Arcuitor in them this bumps up to 8”, as the movement is based on the highest Initiative in the unit. It also gives them Hammer of Wrath (1) and Furious Charge (1), so they’ll Instant Death marines (but you would anyway if you have rad grenades). However, Ephemera Instigare is locked to the Lacyrymata Techno-Arcana, so I don’t see a way you can do this without dedicating your Archmagos to Secutor management. 

In addition, you can use Opus Viscera from the Lacyrymata Techno-Arcana to make them make the same movement effect if you pass a Battlesmith roll while in base contact with the model in the unit and move double the highest Iniative, so 8” with an Archmagos. 

Meanwhile, a Malagra Archmagos will have Preferred Enemy (Character), and it turns out that everything is a character these days, and that will make almost everything disappear. This also stops you having to worry about overheating the Gets Hot plasma fusils. 

Blood Slaughterers

A Traitor-locked Dreadnought (Corrupted Engine) unit with a 3+ save at T6 and a 6++, coming in at 110pts. It has Furious Charge (1) and Hit and Run, so hits like a mini Dreadnought with some 5 attacks from S6 AP3 Rending (6+) claws. They’re real real fast, with a base 9 movement and a real ability to get up the board and ruin someone’s day. 

Instead of one of the melee weapons, you can grab a short ranged Impaler Harpoon that lets you re-roll charges if its single shot hits.

Their Malevolent Artifice Aetheric Dominion renders them all but immune to low S and AP shooting, since you can re-roll saves. 

The Blood Slaughter is okay for its points value, but it feels like something written in a post-Contemptor world where the rules know how oppressive dreads are. 

How to Buff Them 

Since this isn’t an Automata but a Corrupted Engine, all of the Cybernetica powers and most of the army’s buff do zilch. Reach instead into the Aethertek Discipline to buff their speed, resilience or melee power. There is also a warlord trait which lets you run them as Troops. 

Decimator 

This Corrupted Engine Dread defends like a Contemptor but swings more like a Leviathan. Furious Charge (2) means it’ll get to S10 on the charge with Brutal (3). There’s no multiple units or talons here so it fills up slots fast.

They have some alternate weapons like the soulburner petard, a Fleshbane Small Blast weapon, and the butcher cannon, a bad gravis autocannon that I’d leave at home. The SOULBURNER PETARD is an absolutely fine weapon, but is cursed with a superb name that calls to me like a siren song. There is more efficient shooting available in the list but I’ve done more foolhardy things while playing Warhammer because of how cool it sounded at the time. 

How to Buff Them 

Copy and paste the Blood Slaughterer paragraph. Since this isn’t an Automata but a Corrupted Engine, all of the Cybernetica powers and most of the army’s buff do zilch. Reach instead into the Aethertek Discipline to buff their speed, resilience or melee power. Getting these to S10 and swinging at WS6 and I5 with the potential of some nasty pace or a 4++ is terrifying. Really can’t overstate how strong this combo is. 

An absolutely terrifying unit, but you have to invest your Archmagos into buffing them. 

Dedicated Transports

Triaros Armoured Conveyor 

For my money, the best transport in the game coming in at 135pt, 100pts cheaper than a Land Raider. Front Armour 14 with a built in Flare Shield, then Side and Rear Armour 12 with 5 Hull Points. It moves 22 models at 12” per turn. This is going to get your Infantry wherever they need to be, and even comes with a twin-linked mauler bolt cannon and a pair of volkite calivers for an impressive 10 anti-infantry shots. It has a shock ram too, which does a tasty D6 S10 AP4 hits when you ram something in addition to the normal hits. S10 will often just instant kill something like a Thallax or a Landspeeder, which isn’t shoddy. 

It’s not an assault vehicle, which is a shame, but most of the time you’re loading this up with Myrmidons which don’t want to charge you, they want to be charged so they can overwatch you off the face of the earth. 

If you do want an assault vehicle, you can reach into the Legacies doc and grab a Phobos Land Raider or a Macrocarid Explorator. 

How to Buff Them 

You can Battlesmith this since it’s a vehicle, but as normal you with dedicated transports want to use a Triaros to amplify the unit inside, not buff it yourself. 

Most of the issue with the Triaros is what to put in it. Technically Thallax and Tech-Thralls can get in here, but I wouldn’t bother since you want the Thallax to fly about, and Tech-Thralls aren’t worth the points to transport. You want your Techpriest Auxilia walking up protecting your robots. This leaves 6 Bulky (3) Myrmidons and a Magos of some kind (maybe 7 if your Techpriest isn’t Bulky). A brilliant way to get these death stars safely up the board and into Return Fire / Overwatch range. 

Your Scyllax can also go in here thanks to the Guardian sub-type, so a Scyllax and accompanying tech priest on foot would be an effective way to deliver them to effective short range firepower. 

Fast Attack 

Artalax Battle-Automata Maniple 

This Castellax chassis with a Utan Jump booster as a dedicated melee threat. Worth noting it currently doesn’t have a kit, even in Resin! It swaps the WS and BS around, as is armed with two power blade arrays with a built in light-autocannon and a plasma cannon on the shoulder. This is expensive at 150pt each, but they have the same benefit that Assault Marines have over Despoilers. Since they’re more mobile, they can actually reach the targets they can kill. They have a solid amount of S6/S7 AP4 firepower too that shouldn’t be snuffed at, but won’t do much into marines. They can take arc scourges as a 20pt upgrade which move them from AP4 to AP3, adding Rampage (D3) and Disruption (5+), which is pretty cool but might be a bit pricey on an already overcosted unit. I’d take one scourge and one power blade array, so you have the option of using either one, as there is no benefit to buying two scourges. 

Bad news is that this fast unit is going to often pass out of Cortex Controller range, meaning it will often resort to Programmed Behaviour. 

How to Buff Them 

Characters can’t join them, since if an utan jump booster (which this unit has) joins a unit with an incunabulan jet pack (which is the only jump pack your Character’s can take) neither of them work. You can use the Cybernetica High-Order of the Techno-Arcana to buff their shooting, but which you can also use to buff up their shooting against units in cover with multiple Cortex Controllers. 

All the normal automata buffing power works. You can heal them with Battlesmith. For a big unit, make ‘em shoot good with Master Technomancer from Archimandrite, or speed ‘em up, buff their shooting, make ’em tankiers or let them react with Cybernetica Exortus from the Cybernetica Cybertheurgy. That said, the unit might often be quite far from your tech priests, is already pretty fast, doesn’t need that much from improved reactions or shooting. 

As a result of the lack of need to buff it and our concerns about Programmed Behaviour, I think this is our second candidate for Paragon of Metal. +1 WS means it can dance with elite troops for one and Precision Strike helps you snipe out characters with a sneaky Breaching power blade array attack. However, one of these with a scourge and the PoM upgrade is 25pts, which is a lot of points for something without a 2+ save and with only 5 wounds. The other option is the Maleficite Techno-Arcana.

Ursurax Cohort 

Similar to the Thallax in defensive profile, the Mechanicum has applied the same Artalax trick to the Thallax that they originally did to the Castellax, giving a ranged Troops unit melee weapons and WS4. Sadly, these boys are even more overcosted and swing at I2. You’d love to give them powerfists instead of their twin lightning claws, but you can only take the upgrade on 1 in every 3. 5 lightning claws attacks on the charge isn’t shoddy, especially considering the utan jump boosters mean they normally get into at least one winning matchup, but this unit is overcosted for what it does. You’ll shred a Tactical Squad without artificer armour, but anything serious (read WS5) will leave the Ursurax found wanting.  

They also come with volkite incinerators, which can shoot the unit they charge with a volkite charger worth of shots, and also deliver a single attack against infantry with S6 and Instant Death instead of your normal profile. This is neat but the fist is almost always the same or better into infantry, as the stuff you want to Instant Death is normally not infantry. 

How to Buff Them 

Like Artalax, characters can’t join them, because of the jump booster / jet pack clash. As with Thallax, there are a few Infantry buffing powers in the Lacyrymata Techno-Arcana, but I would prefer to use these powers buffing Myrmidons. 

Vorax Battle-Automata Maniple

A slightly smaller and squishier skirmishing Automata with a Thallax’s lightning gun and a pair of power blade arrays and rotor cannons. You’d rather the rotor cannons than the Castellax’s bolters as Pinning is great, plus they come with WS4 and I4 base so are much faster than your typical robot. They have Light, Scout and Fleet for getting them where they need to be and landing those charges, so +3 bonus thanks to M8 and running a nasty 15” and still being able to snap shoot its ranged weapons. Scout also means they’ll get Outflank, which is the most common use case. 

These are, once again, fast and solid into weak targets, but unlikely to clear any dedicated assault unit. The issue becomes, as it often is with Automata, that they’re certainly going to end up outside of Cortex Controller range and end up charging something WS5 they can’t eat alive. 

How to Buff Them 

Vorax really feel like a piece is missing. You’d love to have a character following them around for the Cortex Controller and Cybernetica buffs, but both are going to be swiftly left behind since Fleet and Light both require the whole unit to be made up of units with that rule/type. 

Sadly, a single 65pt model is not worth the Paragon of Metal upgrade and the only Tech Priest fast enough to keep up with them is an Archmagos Dominus with an incunabulan jet pack and I wouldn’t like to dedicate my warlord to bug-babysitting. Maybe the play if you want to run tons of these is the Maleficite High-Arcana to fill ‘em full of scrap code, but I don’t think it’s worth it to buff a middling unit like this. 

Vulturax Stratos-Automata Maniple

A flying antigrav Automata with an arc blaster with 4 Haywire (4+) shots that will absolutely rip apart Dreads, Automata and Vehicles. Unhelpfully, their movement of 16” means they’ll end up out of Programmed Behaviour range pretty fast, so end up wasting the arc blaster and two havoc launchers on infantry. Thankfully, it won’t ever charge anything thanks to Surveillance Protocols. This is a super niche unit that goes nuts into certain types of units, but is absolutely useless into everything else. 

It also comes with Djinn-sight like its Thallax pals, to stop the infiltrators! 

I love this unit, but to delete a dread or vehicle you need 2 or 3 of them in a unit, and it leaves them very very vulnerable. 

How to Buff Them 

Cybernetica Exortus isn’t really the play here, since they don’t need to react to anything that isn’t a vehicle or dread, they already hit on 2s and other rules ain’t that useful. Just make sure they have a Cortex Controller, some screens to stop infantry charging them and you’re mostly sorted. Alternatively, deploy the Maleficite Techno-Arcana so they can always shoot the right unit. 

Heavy Support

As an aside, the best is yet to come. 

Karacnos Assault Tank

A Triaros Armoured Conveyor, but swaps the transport capacity for a Karacnos mortar battery and a fair of lightning locks. A lightning lock is an AP3 plasma cannon that Rends instead of Breaching, and has Shred and Exoshock (4+). Meanwhile, the mortar is Heavy 1, 60” range, S6, AP4, Massive Blast (7″), Barrage, Fleshbane, Rad-phage, Ignores Cover, Pinning, Shell Shock (3), Crawling Fire. That’s a lot of special rules. 

If your opponent is playing Auxilia, Militia or Demons this is just going to ruin their bloody day. If they’re playing Marines it’s just going to hit and make them roll a lot of armour saves and a few pinning checks at -3 (or -4 in Night Fighting). It’s a winner against non-Marine lists, and even against 3+ saves it’s not shoddy at all for 225pts. 

In a pinch, it also has the same shock ram as the Triaros. Don’t expect to use this often, but remember it’s there.

How to Buff Them 

It’s all good. Just let them cook, give it a screen or some cover, and hope the resulting AP4 D6+6” explosion doesn’t ruin your day. You’ll learn to respect it after a few -4 Pinning Checks.  

Knight Moirax Talon

There is a reason that these forbidden weapons of war are not given to the Knight Houses and instead kept for the Mechanicum themselves. This is the slightly underwhelming Armiger chassis you know and love, but replacing Line and their underwhelming weapon options with some absolutely filthy armaments. 

Let’s bash through the list. The volkite veuglaires are fine 5 AP4 shots with Deflagrate. The lightning locks are AP3 plasma cannons that Rend instead of Breaching, adding Shred and Exoshock (4+). Conversion beam cannons are a Small Blast with Blind and scaling S and AP based on range. Graviton pulsars are a 2 shot Graviton Small Blast. The siege claw is S14, AP2, Brutal (2) and Wrecker, and comes with a built in irad-cleanser, a Fleshbane Template weapon. Their rad-furnaces give them +1 to wound in melee, Fleet (2) and Move Through Cover lend some impressive maneuverability.  

They all have Night Vision. Greuso Protocol means they get a special reaction allowing them to protect Knights or Automata by doing an Overwatch for them. 

How to Buff Them 

I’d avoid the veuglaire, but everything else just works. A pair of conversion beamers is a nasty surprise for the enemy backline. Siege claws and pulsars might actually do some damage to dreads. Lightning locks will nicely clear out midfield infantry. 

Krios Squadrons

A banger at 125pts, a Krios has a Predator-like chassis, with 13/12/10 and 4 HP. It moves a mighty 16” and is Fast meaning it can really get about. It also has an inbuilt quasi-dozer blade (a GALVANIC TRACTION DRIVE) and a +6 Will Not Die.  

It is armed with a Large Blast S7 AP3 lightning cannon or can pay 25pts for a pulsar-fusil, which is a 4 shot, Ordanance Pinning LASCANNON. Ouch. Plus, since it’s so fast, you’ll never be pinging this into a flare shielded Front Armour, you’re far more likely to shoot the enemy tank in the squishy bits. The final option is the similarly expensive irradiation blaster, which is either a Hellstorm Fleshbane flamer, or a 16” range Fleshbane beam weapon that has you drawing a line and hitting everything that it touches. Also, if you Penetrate a vehicle (unlikely at S7) then it does Fleshbane hits to the models inside. 

You can buy some volkite cavaliers for the sponsons at 30pts. This might be worth it on the lightning cannon or irradiator variants, but I wouldn’t bother with the pulsar-fusil since it’s an ordnance weapon. 

How to Buff Them 

Krios go brrr. Might be the best tank in the game. Needs no buffs. Fear the day they come out in plastic. 

Myrmidon Destructor Host

This unit is absolutely fine, essentially being expensive Devastator-equivalent Myrmidons. They’re armed with AP3 melee weapons, but the main call is an array of BS5 weapons with a solid punch but low efficiency for their points cost. 

Culverins end up with vaguely equivalent firepower to their Secutor equivalents but trading +1 S and 1 shot at range for the melee punch. Conversion beamers are a pain without mobility and are outclassed by Moirax thanks to the extra damage and mobility. Graviton imploders offer efficient haywire but at a short 18” range, and are outclassed by Moirax or grav guns on Secutors. Darkfire cannons are tasty, each Destructor shooting 2 shots at S7 AP2 Lance and Blind, likely to ruin the day of any vehicle without a flare shield (as flare shields affect weapon Strength not a Vehicle Armour Value), but won’t Instant Death marines and is worse into Dreads. The irradiation engines are solid, as most flamers don’t have AP3 and these have Fleshbane and Torrent, so will absolutely mince power armoured models. 

How to Buff Them 

Secutors are much more expensive than Heavy Support Squads, but make up for it with massively increased resilience and Relentless.. At all I think their main issue in this list is the comparison to Secutors or Moirax which are both just better.  

There are a few options for buffs. You can hand out Monster Hunter with the Arcuitor Magisterium. The movement and melee buffing powers from Ephemera Instigare and Opus Viscera are nowhere near as useful. Also, a Malagra Archmagos has Preferred Enemy (Character), lending a potent shooting buff into infantry. 

My favourite way to run these is irradiation engines and stuffing them into a Triaros, but that is an extremely expensive way of killing tacticals. If you really don’t want tacticals to exist you could instead put them in a Macrocarid Explorator with two more irradiation engines, but that eats points and heavy support slots like both are going out of fashion. Maybe 3 of them in a Termite Assault Drill has legs? 01101000 01100001 01101000 01100001  

Thanatar Siege-Automata Maniple

There are two variants here. 

The Thanatar-Calix (255pts) is armed with a graviton ram similar to the domitar but with AP4 on the template weapon, and a sollex-heavy las. This big lager has 3 shots of S10, AP2 and has Armourbane (Ranged) and Shock Pulse, is guaranteed to ruin at least a few Hull Points off any vehicle. 

Meanwhile, the Thanatar-Cavas (235pts) just has a pair of shock chargers (as per the Castellax) and a tasty plasma mortar, which fires an Ordnance plasma Large Blast up to twice a turn if you’re brave enough to take D3 wounds with Reactor Overload. 

Both has an impressive defensive profile with 8 W, T8, 2+ and the usual atomantic deflector, so will take a while to shift, even if you do a few wounds to yourself a turn with Reactor Overload. 

How to Buff Them 

Neither of these really want to be in melee, and both of them want a Tech Priest using Cybernetica Exortus to make them harder to kill and able to react. The pain with the Thanatar is that they operate as individual units after deployment, so you cannot buff multiple chassis at once like you can a Domitar or Castellax. 

Paragon of Metal is also a solid option on the Calix, as you can Precision Shot (4+) a sollex-heavy las into a character of your choice. It definitely makes the melee less punishing. 

Lords of War

There are a few knights here, the Atrapos, Asterius, Styrix and Maegera, which gain It Will Not Die (6+), Night Vision and a Flare Shield. These are all good upgrades and they’re free. We’ve discussed them in the Knights review article, but to keep it quick they increase from exceptionally bad to good in the order written above.  

There are also a pair of superheavies, the Ordinatus Akteaus (big drill and rockets) and Ordinatus Ulator (sonic beam gun), which are so expensive, glorious and stupid that I refuse to further bloat this absurd article by reviewing their exotic and terrible rules. If anyone wants to bring one to the Goonhammer Open I will let you, Lord of War caps be damned. I just want to see Terrestial Disregard make half a battlefield disappear, the Aktaeus class seismic excavator macro-drill cause a massive blast array of BIG DRILL or the Sonic Disruptor tear a 5” wide straight line of someone’s army into paste with a really loud noise.  

There is a pair of absolutely bonkers Traitor-locked quasi-Knight choices. 

The Kytan Daemon Engine slaps with 7+D3 S9 WS6 attacks on the charge with its Brutal (3) weapon, and a Kytan gatling cannon that’s the same as a castigator gatling cannon. It’s Malefic Aegis (4+) persists in melee unlike an ion shield. Some powers from an Aethertek Archmagos can bring it to horrific heights of murder, swinging at WS7 I5. 

This is one hell of a 40pt upgrade on the Knight Castigator, and it’s one of the units I’ve politely asked attendees at the GHO to leave at home.

The Greater Brass Scorpion is a much more mixed role unit, with a tasty combination of guns and melee weapons. It still gets pretty horrid under the effects of an Aethertek Archmagos, but since it has much more ranged output the melee effect is less significant. 

Legacies

There are technically a few units in the Legacies of the Age of Darkness Mechanicum PDF. I don’t think any of them have any real bones but it certainly contains rules: 

• Traitor Techpriest named Inar Satarael. 
• Adsecularis Tech-Thrals: A unit of close combat tech-thralls with either chainswords or 8” Mitra-locks. Chaff is as chaff does, but this chaff re-rolls to hit and wound between Hatred and Chainswords. 
• Mechanicum Termites, which are good as always. 
• Tarantulas continue to exist. 
• The Land Raider Phobos is completely surpassed in my books by the Triaros, but you may need an Assault Vehicle on some units. It also has a lot of weird weapon options you can take, like plasma cannons, flamestorn cannons, or multi-meltas, as well as a selection of hull- and pintle- mounted weapons. The lascannons are better but go off king. Only issue here is that it’s not a dedicated transport and can’t be squadroned, so it is going to contest your busy Heavy Support slots.
• Macrocarid Explorator is a Spartan with much worse guns, but you can give it a smaller but similarly wild array of silly weapons. The standout here are the irradiation engines! 
• The Ordo Reductor Artillery Tank has a selection of inexplicable weapons… Mars-Colossus bombard, magna laser destroyers, demolisher cannons, gravis melta cannon arrays… It costs too many points considering its on a rhino chassis. They’re overcosted but I’m a fan.
  
• Finally, you can take a Minotaur for 280 points. It is not AP3. Never change, Warhammer: The Horus Heresy. 

Next time: Tech Priests and all the other stuff. Techno Arcana, Cybertheurgies, Warlord traits, list building, things of this nature.

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