First list for my Mechanicum looking for thoughts

[hushed ridge]

I have no hope and I'm pretty sure this list is awful but looking for some input just based on the first try here

Mechanicum - Test - [1991 Pts]

++ Crusade Force Organisation Chart ++ [1556 Pts]

Expanded Army Lists

Expanded Army List Profiles: Exemplary Units On, Legacy Units On

Allegiance

Allegiance: Loyalist
Mechanicum

HQ [195 Pts]

Archmagos Prime [195 Pts]: Cortex Controller, Mechanicum Protectiva, Warlord, Power Maul, Volkite Serpenta, Cyber-Familiar, Cybernetica, The Logic of Victory, Artificia Cybernetica (Cybernetica Exortus (Cybertheurgic Rite), Mordeo Cogita (Cybertheurgic Weapon)), Machinator Array (Flamer, Meltagun)

Elites [405 Pts]

Domitar Battle-Automata Maniple [405 Pts]:
• 3x Domitar [130 Pts]: Atomantic Deflector, 2x Graviton Hammer, Missile Launcher with Frag, Krak and Ignis Missiles, Searchlights

Troops [431 Pts]

Thallax Cohort [266 Pts]: Close Combat Weapon, Frag Grenades, Incunabulan Jet Pack, Lightning Gun, Lorica Thallax, Meltabombs
• 6x Thallax [37 Pts]
Thallax Cohort [165 Pts]: Close Combat Weapon, Frag Grenades, Incunabulan Jet Pack, Lightning Gun, Lorica Thallax, Meltabombs, Multi-Melta
• 3x Thallax [37 Pts]

Heavy Support [525 Pts]

Thanatar Siege-automata Maniple [235 Pts]:
• 1x Thanatar Cavas [235 Pts]: Thanatar Cavas (Atomantic Deflector, Plasma Mortar, 2x Shock Charger, Twin-linked Mauler Bolt Cannon)
Thanatar Siege-automata Maniple [290 Pts]:
• 1x Thanatar Calix [290 Pts]: Paragon of Metal, Thanatar Calix (Atomantic Deflector, Graviton Ram, Sollex Heavy-Las, Twin-linked Mauler Bolt Cannon)

Lords of War Have Moved to "Lords of War Detachment"

How to add an allied or lord of war detachment

++ Lord of War Detachment ++ [435 Pts]

Expanded Army Lists

Expanded Army List Profiles: Exemplary Units On, Legacy Units On

Allegiance

Allegiance: Loyalist
Mechanicum

Lords of War [435 Pts]

Mechanicum Knight Styrix [435 Pts]: Arm Mounted Volkite Chieorovile, Flare Shield, Ion Shield, Graviton Gun, Siege Claw with In-Built Irad-Cleanser

[kindred gazelle]

<@&877304280112046111>

[tepid pumice]

You’re not really taking advantage of the Cybernetica arcana, so I’d consider changing that.

[forest palm]

Don't have much experience with Knights yet, so can't comment on the good or bad with the Styrix, but the rest of the list is pretty solid for 2k. Thallax are always great, nimble and dangerous, the Meltabombs are maybe not required imo but if you see yourself charging fortifications or vehicles they could come in useful.

I'm assuming the play here is to have the Archmagos run up with the Domitar and go smash stuff?
Thanatar Calix with Paragon is always solid, great sniper unit and great at shutting down potentially nasty stuff with shock pulse.

[tepid pumice]

Other than your Archmagos riding with the Domitar, which they can’t do otherwise.

I’d suggest adding a Techpriest Auxilia to repair your Cavas and provide nuncio vox support for it

[hushed ridge]

I'm not 100% sold on my knight being in there my friend I'm playing with is bringing his primarch so I feel like I need something kinda comparable to compete with that but idk what exactly

[hushed ridge]

Any suggestions what you'd suggest changing to/dropping to add the techpriest auxilia? I also feel like I just don't have a lot of stuff for like scoring on this list but I haven't actually played yet so I'm almost 100% sure I may be misunderstanding line/scoring with units

[tepid pumice]

I’ll tell ya right now that a Knight isn’t gonna save you against a Primarch. But the Styrix does look very stylish

[hushed ridge]

Gotcah any suggestions on what I should do to deal with it then?

[tepid pumice]

Primarchs are a place where Mech traditionally struggles, outside of a few powerhouse builds that all rely on Myrmidon Secutors

You have some tools - the Cavas and the Calix can both instant death some of the primarch’s retinue

[hushed ridge]

So should I just drop the knight in favor of more bodys then?

[tepid pumice]

Depends. Are you really gunning for a win, or just want to compete and field a very cool army?

[hushed ridge]

bit of a mix as long as the game is actually a good match I don't care to much we've had a lot of fairly one sided matches in the past and that just kills the fun on one side pretty quick

[blazing widget]

If you have access to it (and are willing to fall to the dark side), a kytan daemon engine is just about the only thing mech has that will match a primarch in melee — especially if you buff it up with an aethertek archmagos. I will say, it is an absolutely filthy knight though, so be prepared for some salt when people read the profiles

[hushed ridge]

So to start with we are gonna be on TTS so having access to it is more just a matter of finding the model somewhere

[blazing widget]

Gotcha, I haven’t looked but I’m sure there’s one out there

[hushed ridge]

Not 100% sure if I'm not gonna be running cybernetica as my technoarcana what I would want to run instead that or if I just fully drop the knight I could toss in units that benifit from cybernetica still looking into that now

[blazing widget]

If you’re running cybernetica, castellax with heavy weapons really benefit from reducing cover saves by 2

Plus, you know, line

Also, the more robots you run, the more sources of cybertheurgy/cortex controllers you want

[hushed ridge]

Yea that's kinda what I was thinking of doing

Also something I was thinking lol

[blazing widget]

Yeah, the recommended ratio is 1/bot unit

[hushed ridge]

Hmmm I think that means I'm running what we can call in the buisness a little low

[blazing widget]

Just a touch

An example would be the archmagos with the domitars, a magos dominus with a castellax blob and a tech-priest auxilia unit to buff and heal the thanatar cavas

The cavas doesn’t need the cover bonus, so you really just wanna make sure the castellax have two cortex controllers in range

[hushed ridge]

If I decide to not got with Cybernetica should I drop the Domitar since I can't smack the archmagos with them or is running them still fine I just need to find something else to put the magos with

[blazing widget]

It’ll really depend on what direction you wanna take things. Domitars are good, but really shine as a means of making dreadnoughts cry and as a big punchy blob (or as punchy as WS4 gets)

Are there any particular models/themes you want to try out? Also, it might be worth asking your opponent to leave the primarch at home for a game since it sounds like you haven’t played mech before

[hushed ridge]

Neither of us have actually played 30k before

And not in particular I like about 90% of the mech models so I'm pretty fine toss in whatever model into the list

[blazing widget]

The issue with primarchs is that they warp stuff, especially below 3k points. Depending on the primarch, the guy plus a retinue plus an appropriate transport can easily approach 800+ points

[hushed ridge]

If I remember right it's Pertuabo that he's bringing

[blazing widget]

Yeah… Perturabo with iron circle for example is like 900 right there

It’s kinda like when someone brings knights to a low point game in 40k — either you have the answer and stomp or you don’t and get stomped.

[hushed ridge]

I don't know what he's bringing with him

[blazing widget]

That’s the option a friend likes to bring

But fair

Also, wait a sec

Aren’t you playing 2k?

[hushed ridge]

Also god don't remind me my first 40k game was against a guy playing chaos knights since as long as chaos knights have been in the game and I just got walked over lol

[hushed ridge]

Correct does retinue count towards his limit for the primarch/LOW limit?

[blazing widget]

This is from the FAQ/errata

Q. If a unit that is limited to not exceeding a certain
percentage of your army’s total points cost (such as a
Primarch) takes a Retinue Squad, is the Retinue Squad,
and any Dedicated Transports purchased for them,
considered part of the value of that original unit for the
purposes of the total value of that unit?
A. Yes

[hushed ridge]

Ahhhh I may wanna let him know about that

[blazing widget]

So if he’s bringing perty, a) he can’t take the hammer and b) no retinue squad/transport allowed

[hushed ridge]

Which hammer? Forgebreaker?

[blazing widget]

Yeah

Since that takes him to 460

Wait

Nvm

I can’t do math

[hushed ridge]

Lol I feel that

[blazing widget]

…ignoring that, he can just stick perturabo with a big terminator squad or something

[hushed ridge]

Yea I was about to ask all primarchs are independent characters so he could still stick it with something just none of his special retinue

[blazing widget]

Yeah, so he can’t take a command squad or something

[hushed ridge]

Where is that FAQ at btw just wanna be able to point him at something to show it so it doesn't sound like I'm just making it up lol I doubt that he would think that but I like having a reference point

[blazing widget]

Here you go

https://assets.warhammer-community.com/horusheresy_faqs&errata_liberastartes_eng_24.09-oytusbjk5r.pdf

It’s on page 3

[hushed ridge]

Ty

So for adding more cortex controllers in the current list what do you think I should do cause if I wanna keep the knight I just don't think that I can really do that which means I probably swap out of cybernetica to something. If I drop the knight that means I can do things a little easier just because I have like 400 points of wiggle room to add things in

[blazing widget]

OK, so there are a couple of directions to take

The first is that you drop the knight, add a couple of castellax, a magos dominus and a tech priest auxilia. I’d also recommend downsizing the 6-man thallax to free up some points as needed

The second is that you keep the knight, in which case you can either stay with the styrix or swap it for a magaera, both are about as fine as questoris knights get, but I like the lightning cannon over the volkite gun. Then, it’s kinda hard for me to advise a direction. One option might be a malagra archmagos with a big squad of thallax using photon thrusters. That’ll give you the option to play keep away from perturabo and get a lot of AP2 shots in with some protection from the gets hot (Multi-meltas have less volume but wound perty on 3s) In this case, you can probably drop the domitars and add some TPA support for the thanatar cavas

Then there are more options on the traitor side of things

If you take the nekrotek arcana, it gives your automata IWND 5+ so you can get a lot of milage out of the individual chip damage from the way gets hot works. Additionally, you can bring a ton of gets hot weapons on the magos itself and a blob of tech-thralls that you can leech for health as needed. (You could run double photon gauntlet + photon thruster or plasma fusil)

That list would drop the knight and the domitars and bring at least one unit darkfire castellax, and might even drop the PoM calix for another cavas to get more chances to heal

[kindred gazelle]

Especially like Ferrus, Horus and the other absolute tanks of Primarchs

[blazing widget]

Then there’s the daemon engine option. Swap the knight for a kytan, make sure the archmagos has the aethertek arcana and a jetback so it can join thallax to follow the kytan around and keep it buffed, you get to take a decimator as a non-compulsory troops choice (it hits like a truck, but is very expensive, it’d probably replace the domitars)

You get to go full uno-reverse card and throw a kytan, a melee decimator and blood slaughterers at your opponent when he’s expecting a shooty list (granted, the only thing that should be engaging perty is the WS7, 4++ kytan)

Those 4 are what I would think about if you don’t want to go full filth

[kindred gazelle]

lol Ferrus wipes the floor with Perty

[blazing widget]

In a mech list specifically

No primarchs on this side of the board

[hushed ridge]

Yea full filth is gonna be a no go lol not trying to be that guy on our first game lol

[kindred gazelle]

I’m just saying the Kytans hardest three fights would Horus, Ferrus and maybe the Lion

[blazing widget]

I always assume perturabo takes the hammer, so I put him more or less on the same level as ferrus

But yeah, WS8 is pretty painful too

[kindred gazelle]

It’s Unwieldy for Perturabo

Yet its Master Crafted for Ferrus

So Ferrus would be attacking first

[blazing widget]

Huh

Hadn’t actually noticed that

Yeah, swinging that at initiative hurts

Wait it also loses a point of brutal

Weird

[kindred gazelle]

Ferrus

Perturabo

[blazing widget]

Traitors getting strictly worse rules? Must be a day that ends in y

[kindred gazelle]

lol

[kindred gazelle]

Also think like this, Pert is in Terminator plate, Ferrus isn’t

He has more ability to move around easier

[blazing widget]

True enough, though don’t they both have 2+/3++?

[kindred gazelle]

Yes but you have Night Vision

[blazing widget]

Gotcha

[kindred gazelle]

While Ferrus gives the army a FNP

[blazing widget]

My locals scene has a very dedicated iron warriors player but no iron hands, so I don’t know too much about what they do

[kindred gazelle]

If you put IH on the table vs IW I counter your legion rule

[blazing widget]

Rip bozo

[kindred gazelle]

Where your weapon would stay normal strength Instead of being increased

Because Iron Hands reduce your Weapon strength

[blazing widget]

Wait, IW increases vs dreads/automata/vehicles, while IH protect dreads and infantry, right?

So you each get half a legion rule

[kindred gazelle]

Yep

[kindred gazelle]

Vehicles not dreads

Iron Hands

Iron Warriors

[blazing widget]

Anything w/o vehicle is protected

So IW get the bonus against vehicles and that’s about it

[kindred gazelle]

Yes but our Vehicles are protected lol

[blazing widget]

No…

that does not have the Vehicle Unit

[kindred gazelle]

It gains a It will not die

[blazing widget]

Sure

But that’s different than -1 strength

[kindred gazelle]

I call that protection because it saved my tanks

[blazing widget]

I value IWND 6+ at like 0.1 points

But to each their own

[kindred gazelle]

it’s not like I am always having to use that IWND

Because of Blessed Auto-Simulacra

Or Armatus Necrotechnika

[blazing widget]

I see

[kindred gazelle]

Because that 6+ becomes a 5+

[blazing widget]

I’m beginning to see what traitor players are complaining about

[kindred gazelle]

Lmao

Loyalist gotta love em

[blazing widget]

Maybe 3rd edition legion rules won’t be written by a fists player

[kindred gazelle]

[kindred gazelle]

Now picture the rules I just shown you, and form a PoTL list with all the squads having Cyber Familiars

With Ferrus at their head

They are very hard to shift

2+/3++ on each terminator squad

With a FNP of 6+++

So all those terminators become 2+/3++/6+++

But with Ferrus also being on the field to increase our IWND to 5+ they are now 4+ for vehicles with Blessed Auto-Simulcara

[hushed ridge]

Out of curiosity cause I don't see anything about it and I'm curious do knights have bulky/some kind of equivalent to bulky?

[blazing widget]

The closest you’ll get are the night lord rules which count vehicles as being 10 models. Otherwise, they’re just 1. It’s one of those weird things you kinda need to house rule

[hushed ridge]

Also where did the Kytan show up book/faq wise or whatever cause I'm not seeing them anywhere