The gauntlet has been thrown. I am here to tell you that, in an alarming departure from established norms, beloved Poster and site icon Greg is wrong about something. The Adeptus Mechanicus Stilt Man is Good, Actually, and I can prove it.
Rarely does one model so perfectly capture the essence of its chosen faction. Does the Sydonian Skatros have a completely indecipherable name? It sure does. Will it cost approximately $2 per point and be a mandatory three-of in any reasonably competitive Admech army? It certainly will. Will its tall antennae and weird knee-joint vanes snap and disappear forever approximately one second after you pick it up for the first time? Brother, you know it to be true. This thing is going to abrade in your case like a piece of chalk in a rock tumbler.
I will not countenance a word against my (very) tall adult son, though, because the design is so perfectly Admech that it makes my soul sing. What look like flaws to your human eyes are in fact evidence of the Omnissiah’s blessings. The Skatros simply is the faction, coalesced into one model.
Imagine the tech-priests who came up with the concept for this guy. “We need a sniper,” Belisarius Cawl says. “Make him tall.” Cawl is a busy man. He cannot do everything himself.
“Shall we give him a grappling hook so he can scale buildings?” asks Tech-Priest A. (This is the Tech-Priest’s actual name).
“No,” says Tech-Priest B. “That is how the Astra Militarum would do it.” And she is correct.
“Shall we give him a jetpack?” asks Tech-Priest A, after a moment’s reflection.
“No,” says Tech-Priest B, shaking her head. “This is how the Space Marines would do it.” And she is once again correct. You know it to be true, gentle reader. They would be called Interpolators, they would come in a $200 box set that goes on sale once for five minutes in the middle of the night, and for the next three years that would be the only way to get them.
“Then what?” asks Tech-Priest A, at the end of his cyber-rope. He is out of ideas. Cawl will surely demote him to Robot Polisher for this failure.
Just then, an Inquisitor walks by, eating space-ramen with a pair of cyber-chopsticks. The Tech-Priests look at each other and nod in unison.
I am pretty sure I heard the preview streamers use the word “Blanchitsu,” and if it makes you feel better, you can pretend that you only like the Skatros because it reminds you of classic Warhammer art. I know better. This is peak performance. You may not like it, but this is what the ideal cyborg sniper looks like: four arms, legs that just don’t quit, and a visor with optic sights to wear over eyes which are also themselves optic sights.
It has not escaped my notice that they previewed the Skatros alongside a new detachment rule, for a detachment that he is (at least theoretically) suited for, and the rule does literally nothing for him. He already has Stealth and Lone Operative means that he can’t be shot at all from more than 12″ away. He gains no benefit from the rule whatsoever. And that, my friends, is so Admech it hurts.
Will the Skatros be good on the table? I neither know nor care. I have not played a game with my Admech in more than two years. I am still going to buy one and paint it. I will put it with all of my other robotmen, on the table in my office, and when my wife is not around I will pick him up and go “pew pew pew,” then knock over some Orks with my finger. I may get two so I can have both guns and both faces. You can’t stop me. No one can.
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