Legio Cybernetica Imperial Knight - TO WAR!

Hey all,

Not 100% finished, but it is really minor things like weathering the barrel of the cannon and adding binaric script to the chest scroll that need doing on this chap. No name yet, still working on appropriate background fluff for my entire Legio Cybernetica as well as the Knight.

I'm really happy with how the yellow has turned out on the large curved areas, I think it has a nice variety of tones to give it believable depth and age. Apologies for the slightly dark photos though, I couldn't fit the knight in my light box so I had to improvise!

I'm not all that when it comes to conversion work, so I know there are bits where I should probably have filled it in, but I'm going for a - straight off the shop floor and not quite finished look... *cough* ;) let me know what you think!

Peace out,

Rob

Legio Cybernetica Cohort - Thallax Update

Hello there,

So I finally got some of my hobby stuff unpacked and got back to work on my Mechanicum. I've got a week on Saturday to have them all done. The field is a confirmed 60 strong and the painting is always top class, so my main aim with these guys is just to get into the judges picks, which then go forward to participant voting, I would be very pleased with that level of recognition. 

The main not coming back from my last update was a light blue OSL instead of something darker or plainer on the Thallax lightening guns. I was umming and ahhing to begin with on the blue and you fine people helped assure me it was a good choice. I also decided to add some OSL to the jet pack to give the colours a bit more life. I've decided  not to add Hazard stripes to these guys and save that for Battle Automata. 

Anyway, here's my Thallax done for the tournament except bases. I still want to weather them more though like the Castellax also:

Squad 1:

Squad 2:

Squad 3:

Tomorrow I am hoping to get the final Castellax completed, the priming of my Two Thanatars complete and also get the mesh down on all the Thallax bases. I'm going to need to put some fair time into these guys over the next 12 days to have them ready!

Thoughts?


Peace out,

Rob

Horus Heresy Review: Mechanicum Warlord Traits

Hi everyone,

After a (literally) back breaking weekend of moving house I am laid up on pain killers as my arms attempt to detach themselves from my body. I think they are aware that the main parts of me are broken and have the made the wise decision to attempt to jump ship... Alas I am too strong for them and they have been forced into the servitude of blog writing!

As I am still in the process of unpacking all my models and paints etc. etc. you are likely to get a lot more review articles out of me this week then actual hobby progress. But I have a 5 day weekend coming up as the joy that is British Bank holidays as well as additional University Closure days will give me some good hobby time to probably get close to completing my mechanicum if not actually making!

Anyway, long story short, here's a quick look at the Mechanicum specific warlord traits in 30k :)

1 - Master of Mechanisms - You can give any one unit of monstrous creatures of squadron of vehicles (with at least one AV of 12+) the It Will not Die Special Rule.

This is very effective in Cybernetica and Reductor armies where you will have at least one or the other and can help make them more independent from Cybertheurgy and Battlesmith characters who would normally help keep them alive.

2 - Perfected Targeting - The warlord can make his own weapon or any HEAVY weapon within 6" twin-linked for that turn (usable every turn).

This is an excellent rule, works particularly well with scattering weapons as you already have the option to increase a lot of your heavy weapons to BS5 as they are commonly on battle automata that can take Enhanced targeting. So used on a Thanatar's Hellex Plasma Mortar its brilliant.

3 - Predictive Augury - Warlord and his unit hit on 5/6 with overwatch.

Joint lowest in my regard as ideally you don't want to be locked up in combat and units that will get locked up, like Thallax, have low rate of fire weapons anyway. Would be nice on a blob of Adsecularis covenant, but ideally they would be fearless with their additional Rite, but that prevents overwatch! Not bad, especially if you have given your warlord a rotor cannon or such, but nothing amazing.

4 - The Death of Flesh - All mechanicum detachment untits have preferred enemy within 3" of an objective.

Helps your mobile units be more effective at killing, very pleasant and can help in maelstrom if you move into 3" range and need to clear a unit off it to score that objective. It specifies just within 3", not controlling the objective.

5 - Dread Rites - The Warlord and any unit he joins cause fear and are immune to it. They also have adamantium will.

Somewhat situational, though much more useful on 30k due to the lack of fearless being so omni-present. Can really help against a dedicated melee squad that you want to be hitting you as little as possible whilst bringing them down. Librarians and psychic powers, in my experience, are much less prevalent so adamantium will isn't that hot, but it doesn't hurt and its good that you get the two buffs so hopefully at least one should apply.

6 - Battlefield Analysis - You can lower the cover save of any piece of terrain on the battlefield in the enemies deployment zone by -1.

Coupled with the -1 you get from enhanced targeting array or the -2 you can get from Thallax Djinn sight, you can take a 5+ piece of cover completely away from the enemy or reduce a 4+ to a 6+ at the worst. A really nice warlord traits which synergises with the army so well.


Overall - no really duff traits and 4 of them are really very helpful. Master of Mechanisms, Perfected Targeting and Battlefield Analysis are my favourites in ascending order as they gel incredibly well with how the Mechanicum work as an army already and invariably will benefit you regardless of your plat style. Generally better thought out (as 30k tends to be) than most 40k warlord traits that are coming out recently on the whole.


Peace out,


Rob

Horus Heresy Review: Legio Cybernetica Cohort

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Recently I wrote a general overview of the Taghmata Omnissiah forces of the 31st Millennium. This body of mechanised ministrations is every bit as fractured as the Imperium of Man (both on a military and cultural level) and today I want to expound upon one of the two major splinter factions available to play as in 30k. There are further smaller factions within the rules that I will go over in the relevant entry, but for today will be talking about the Legio Cybernetica.

When the mechanicum were initially introduced into 30k they were introduced a three separate forces, the: Legio Cybernetica, Ordos Reductor and the Taghmata Omnissiah. As the rules have developed these have all now come under the umbrella of the Omnissiah with rules presented in the appendix to allow you to specialise in the Legio Cybernetica or Ordos Reductor play styles (which incidentally match my two categories of play style in my previous post quite well as it happen). I'm going to go over the unique restrictions, benefits and units of the Legio Cybernetica now to show you what they are about, and the Ordos Reductor will follow later this week :)

Legio Cybernetica - Special Rules

As the name sort of gives away, this branch of the mechanicum specialises in using lots of cyberneticlly enhanced battle automata. This means lots of Castellax, Thanatars and Vorax in particular. The Legio Cybernetica Cohort is an alternative means of fielding the mechanicum and acts very much as a rite of war does for the Legiones Astartes, in this case the Cohort grants two important special rules:

Legion of Steel - normally (as I will cover in their own post) Castellax cannot be taken as compulsory troops choices and never score. In a Legio Cybernetica Cohort, Castellax MUST be taken as the compulsory troop choices AND each unit must be comprised of at least 2 castellax. This does not appear to effect their ability to score. 

This is a cool rule as it means you can max out on castellax in a way you couldn't previously BUT the necessity to take approximately 500 points worth of non-scoring units for troops in a game where points win prizes does knock the competitive edge from this build.

Enhanced Cyber-control - Normally you are only guaranteed to keep control over your battle automata if they are within 12 inches of a cortex controller (Which your HQ's will have) but this rule extends that too 24 inches! Giving you a 48 inch bubble either side of a cortex controller to make sure your battle automata do what you want them too! Additionally all models with a cyber cortex gain +1 initiative.

This is a BIG rule and is the reason I am going to be taking this Cohort (as well as the obvious cool factor). Ensuring control over your big beasties at range, providing you keep the cortex controllers alive, is a massive boon to your tactical flexibility. This is an especially important point during deployment, as it allows you to extend your threat zones considerably as and when you need to. The initiative boost is nice, but situational, it could make a big difference if hitting at the same initiate step though so I'm not going to sniff at it!

Legio Cybernetica - Unique Units

Archmagos Dominus

In the basic Taghmata you have the option of taking multiple types of Magos ranging from the lowest ranking of these higher castes of machanicum society to the ranks of Archmagos. The archmagos dominus is unique to the Legio Cyberntica and is a bit of a beast, though the points go up appropriately for this! Lets look at his stats and basic equipment first:

Stats

WS  BS  S  T  W  I  A  LD  Sv

  4     5    4  5   3   3  2   10   2+

Equipment

Power weapon, Volkite Serpenta, Cortex controller, Machina protectiva. 

The basic stats of this HQ are good. though they do come at a pretty huge base cost over around 150 points. But you have a character with a good armour save and invulnerable (the machina protectiva grant a 4++), staying power (T5) with a little bit of damage output with his weapons (very limited by the 2 attacks though) and an all important cortex controller to keep your beasts in tow. However it is the upgrade options as well as special rules that make this fellow shine.

Special Rules

Stubborn - does what it says on the tin, but help ensure he won't break with that LD10

Battlesmith - this allows you to work like an enginseer and restore hull points, repair weapons and repair immobilised results on a 5+ instead of shooting.

Cybertheurgy - this is the equivalent of being able to give orders in the Imperial Guard (Astra Militarum). You can nominate any unit of cybernetica and on a successful leadership test you can grant them various boons, such as regain a wound or fire a weapon twice in one phase. I will cover this in depth in a future article.

Feel no pain - does what it says on the tin, adding an additional layer of durability onto an already beefy frame.

Relentless - seems fairly benign but then you will see some of the weapon options available to be taken and this includes several heavy options so you can move and pump out those shots to your hearts content!

Patris Cybernetica - the battle automata are by and large monstrous creatures, which prevents you from joining a unit of them. This rule circumvents that and allows you to join your archmagos to a unit of castellax or thanatars for example! However this prevents him from going to ground AND enemies may elect not to shoot at him even if he is the closest model, to represent the vast size and threat of the automata. Therefore you cannot protect your automata with your Archmagos, you use the automata to protect the Archmagos instead!

Independent character - well what did you expect...

The Archmagos must also be your warlord if taken, and if he and every other model that has a cortex controller is dead at the battle end, then your opponent receives +D3 victory points! So keep them alive!

Upgrades

I won't list all the upgrades here as they are many and varied and they are shared by all of the HQ choices more or less, so I will cover them in depth when I review all the generic HQ choices for the Taghmata. However I will cover a few upgrade options below as they are excellent in combination with this particular choice:

Abeyant - an abeyant can take many forms and serves an essential survival purpose for the Archmagos. This could be as a life support system, or a massive mechanical body impervious to small arms fire, or even a delicate floating platform with a shield around it. 

An abeyant grants +1 wound, it will not die, move through cover, very bulky, and hardened armour (important for zone mortalis games mostly). Wow, a 4 wound, 2+/4++ IWND T5 HQ with move though cover.... Awesome.

Cyber-familiar - wait did I say a 2+/4++ above??? Well strike me down and call me a liar... if you take a cyber familiar it improves your invulnerable by +1 (to a maximum of a 3++). SO now you have a 2+/3++ T5 HQ with IWND!

This gem also allows you to re-roll any characteristic tests that are not LD or Dangerous terrain. So strength and toughness tests really, but mainly this is for getting you that all important 3++.

Machinator array - Wait wait wait, did I say T5?? Well forget that! With a machinator array you get +1 toughness! As well as having an in built flamer and inferno (melta) pistol! You can fire both of these in the shooting phase OR you can fire on of them and another ranged weapon you have. 

Additionally the array also grants an extra TWO attacks in close combat with a +1 strength, shred, armourbane, unwieldy profile. If you take this it is worth having your standard power weapon as a none unwieldy one at AP3 like a power sword. Remember these are two attack IN ADDITION to your normal ones. So on the charge you can make 4 x S4 AP3 attacks at initiative 3 and then 2 AP2 attacks at initiative 1. Makes little odds against marines other than to ensure you get some hits in before a thunder hammer/power fist, but will do wonders against any human opponent. 

Double additionally, the array grants +2 to any battlesmith rolls you make, therefore restoring hull points on a 3+!!

Conversion beamer - this particular upgrade suits an HQ that is going to sit back with a thanatar or unit of long range Darkfire cannon castellax. The long range allows you to use the maximum strength of the conversion beamer and pick on choice targets for destruction. 

Overview

The Legio Cybernetica is designed to be brutally elite with lots of big beasty bastards shooting into the enemy. I would recommend still taking either some thallax or some adsecularis covenant for bubble wrapping or jump-shoot-jump flexibility. But really you should be taking as many battle automata as you can!

The Archmagos Dominus reinforces this character with an expensive but potentially incredibly durable HQ that has all sorts of tidbits he can make use of. However you must keep him alive if you have no other cortex controllers around so as not to give away additional VPs. It is worth it in larger games to take an additional basic dominus just to hide away for the purpose of preventing this as well as extending your cortex controller range. 

Hopefully this post will make more sense as time goes by and I review more and more mechanicum units, they are generally a lot to take in if you are just used to the Legiones Astartes!

Peace out,

Rob

Horus Heresy Overview - The Taghmata Omnissiah - AKA Mechanicum

Hi folks!

Today I'm just going to do a super quick overview of what the Taghmata Omnissiah offers you as an army of the 31st millennium and specifically how I'm going to be building it for myself! I'm going to start off my going through what really characterises a Taghmata army and then I'll go over its strengths and weaknesses before I launch into the build I will be going for!

Army Character

By army character I am trying to give you a feel of what defines this as an army. In much the way that an Imperial Guard (Astra Militarum) army is characterised (by and large) by either massive platoons or loads of tanks, the Taghmata also has its own unique indelible character. 

Monstrous creatures/battle automata. This is one of the key builds of 30k mechanicum. You have at your disposal many many different types of battle automata that are often monstrous creatures and those that aren't are still very high toughness with multiple wounds. These beasts are often the vehicle for large and powerful weapons like the Helix Plasma Mortar - S8 AP2, large blast, ordnance 1, barrage - and so the become vital to your war effort. 

The second most defining things about 30k mechanicum is actually a combination of small elite units (like myrmidons) and transports/tanks. A very uncommon build for 30k mechanicum but one that jumps out at me as completely characteristic of them, is an armoured convoy with vehicles such as the triaros armoured conveyor and the krios battle tanks, supporting/transporting these elite units safely to wreak havoc. In my head this build also incorporates the use of Knights to further add that elite but durable feel to the army.

A third option, though one that does not really strike a chord with me as being 'defining' is the use of hordes of tech-thralls with a few heavy hitters. I am have seen quite a few people run armies like this, but it just doesn't scream MECHANICUM at me, but rather a poor mans Solar Auxilia (Imperial guard of the past).

Strengths

High toughness multiple wound models that come in units. A barebones unit of thallax will come with 9 wounds all at toughness 5 with a 4+ save on jet pack infantry. So although they have a "low" save of 4+ they also have great mobility and require more than a regular bolter to consistently put wounds on them. This means even this BASIC troop option will require a good deal of fire power dedicated at them to kill them. 

Additionally you have a huge variety of excellent weapons at your disposal such as the aforementioned Helix Plasma Mortar. You can really deck your battle automata and other elite units out with fantastic levels of fantastical weaponry making you an incredibly shooty army to be reckoned with. Similarly there are some units that perform very well in combat, though that is not the forte of this army by any means. 

The final strength of this army is the ease of its access to knights, which in 30k is a pretty big deal. As it is not as simple as in 40k to just take an additional knight, partly because of lord of war restrictions but also because a lot of different rites of war for the Legiones Astartes restricts your ability to take allies. 

Weaknesses

There are a few key weakness of the Taghmata that need to be very carefully looked at to avoid some horror situations. The first is two-fold; poison and instant death. Instant death you can't do much about except recognise that threat and deal with it before it gets to you!! You don't have to fear being doubled out much except my S10 for some of your infantry (your battle automata are all T6 or higher so no problem), but any special instant death or remove from play rule can seriously ruin your day. D weapons can obviously do that as well, but they do it to everyone so meh. 

Poison can be a lethal weapon against you because of the toughness ignoring mechanic, as can fleshbane. However, with all of your battle automata specifically, such as castellax or thanatars, they have an inherent resistance to poison fire through their cybernetic resilience special rule, This forces successful wounds from poison or fleshbane weapons to be re-rolled! This only really comes into play though if you go heavy in these big creatures. 

The two other weakness in this army are close combat and flyers. You have limited access to flyers in this army and you are unlikely to run many if any. This makes skyfire nexus objectives incredibly valuable as well as your target priority. If you kill everything on the ground, you're still likely to win!! Cover is important too and avoiding lanes of fire, if you can get into position that the flyers can't navigate (vector dancer excepted) then you should be OK. 

Close combat can kill you through tar pitting. Thanatars are an example of a big strong beast that has excellent ranged weapons,,, but only 2 attacks base. Any large unit of tar pitting bastards will end this threat for nigh on the whole game. Do not let it happen! Careful positioning and again target priority should help alleviate this!

My Army

I love big metallic monstrous creature robots! Therefore I will be cramming my list full of them. This will include up to 5 Castellax, with 2 units of thallax taking up the compulsory slots, I will also run a single 10 man squad of fearless tech thralls (real name adsecularis covenant) to form bubble wraps around important squads or objectives. On top of this I will build a very tough HQ and round things off with 2 thanatars to rain down supporting fire. 

I am hoping to have these guys built in the next 2 weeks as I begin my time off so I can start painting them with a faint hope of taking them to a tournament in early April!! So look out for pictures going up around the end of next week,,,

I have, in my destitute state, decided to use some converted proxies for my thanatars (as I cannot afford £150 for 2 plus shipping!) and I think they will look awesome with a little work... but secret for now! I do love keeping hobby secrets... I'm just bad at it!

That's all for now peoples of the tubes.

Peace out,

Rob