The Glory of Mars: Admech in the Next Dataslate

The Adeptus Mechanicus have had a tumultuous time in 10th edition, from the faction largely spoken about in pained groans for its inefficient rules, to its point as the nadir of power, to the currently fixed version that was so successfully errata'd it’s no longer a talking point.  Yes, Admech are fine right now, but suffer from some internal balance issues which I feel could compound into broader problems with their place in 40k if left unchanged.  While the most recent suite of changes was a great look at how Admech could play, the real issue comes down to the fact that the playable units are scant, and most top lists lack the flexibility behind other factions’ success.  With that in mind, let’s take a quick look at Admech’s current pain points, and the ways to potentially remedy them.

Via Warhammer Community

The biggest aspect that sets apart Admech from other factions is the strength behind their core troops, and the associated low-cost leader — Skitarii Vanguard & Rangers, and the Skitarii Marshal, make up the backbone of the army in a way that essentially no other army can attest, even other horde factions like Guard or Tyranids.  Rangers provide reasonable plink damage from far away, have the option to scout up in a line, and sticky objectives in your backfield.  Vanguard, meanwhile, have a devastating effect on objective play in the midboard, reducing OC and having potent flat Anti-Infantry 4+ across their main, high-attack gun.  Coupling that with the Skitarii Marshal, a leader who provides full Hit rerolls and a once-per-game unshock, and you have some stellar units in nearly any scenario.  This is further exacerbated by how good our primary dedicated transport, the Dunerider, is, completing the reroll chain with the Marshal by potentially giving out Wound rerolls to disembarking units, on top of efficient high-volume fire and a shockingly tough chassis.

Via KC Holt

Admech plays like a midcentury military force, swaths of well-trained soldiery and some optional extras which help them do better, and whom they assist by being the weight of a force.  This is represented by the many aura effects in the army that are bolstered if your non-BL is within 6” of a Battleline unit, and how Cawl is weirdly a ‘man of the people’, taking on that critical keyword.

The rub here, however, is that the subfactions which don’t lean into a Battleline focus are shockingly cheap in terms of their competency budget, and do not account for the fact that the faction isn’t just built around Battleline, but that those units are among the best in the range.  This is why, for the most part, the army sees a healthy 48-51% winrate, but internally the only two subfactions not cratered in that measurement are Rad-Zone Corps and Hunter Cohort.  Rad-Zone providing Lethal Hits to rerollable Vanguard, and Hunter giving them Stealth, both lean into what makes the army good at present, but in subfactions like Data-Psalm and Cybernetica, the buffs all feel hollow.  Even in those lists, if you want your extra AP, rerolls, or battleshock buffs, you still need to be taking Battleline, usually 40 minimum, and those are generally best in transports, with Marshals.  The tax of these units means that focusing on making the ‘other’ part of your army better is generally not worthwhile.

Via Goonhammer

Even in a tuned Data-Psalm list, where you’re taking maxed Fulgurites, Breacher Bomb, and Technoarchaeologist, that’s only a hair over 1000pts of your total list, and the rest is going to be tied up in transports, Battleline, and likely some amount of anti-vehicle firepower like the Skorpius Disintegrator.

On that note, the Disintegrator is quietly one of the best Main Battle Tanks in the game, and for its paltry 175pts most players are taking at minimum 2, sometimes 3 alongside 3 Duneriders for a ‘yacht club’ list.  Breachers were unfairly point-hiked in the update, which shifted them away from this role, further harming the viability of Data-Psalm.  What Data-Psalm needs is twofold: It should have each of its stratagems and core abilities tied to per-unit for their keywords, and drop points on a few key pieces, like the Dominus & Destroyers.  If those abilities worked per-unit and not per-model, you could stick something like a Technoarchaeologist in with Vanguard, and spread not only the full buff suite, but also stratagem access, something this faction would love to do.

Via Reddit

Confronting that reality begins with tailoring all of the subfactions to the necessary inclusion of not just some, but quite a lot of infantry pieces.  Certainly, this means each subfaction could deal with them differently.  Cybernetica could perhaps give their infantry Lone Op, or something similar, representing the robots protecting the weak rank & file, and Explorator could perhaps treat chosen objectives as Battleline, so your units on it would receive their buff regardless of how spread out you were.  Admech in 10th has radically warped their identity around this new troop centrality, but that doesn’t have to be an issue when the pieces are so good.

Via RTS

As far as other units that deserve a little facelift, I would love to see Cawl drop in points a bit, or perhaps always be Battleline, not just in one of his modes.  Furthermore, the Leaders all could use a gentle reduction in points, aside from the Technoarchaeologist (and Marshal) of course.  The Dominus is a great potential unit, as 5+ Feel No Pain is a great selling point, but when you compare it to a Painboy it simply doesn’t stack up in terms of utility.  There’s not a big enough unit to spread that buff around to, in order to make it competent, aside from perhaps Fulgurites..but that would increase the unit’s cost by a factor of 50%, for only a 16% raise in overall tankiness.

The planes are another awful set of units, but make no mistake, I know Games Workshop doesn’t want flyers to be good.  The Transvector is the only option with any potential, but given how good the Dunerider is it’s kind of laughably bad.

Admech doesn’t actually need that many changes in order to become a truly potent army in the current meta, as right now it’s obviously fine by the metrics of tournament data.  Its true flaw is one of core gameplay, and how 10th Edition has evolved in contrast to their original ideas.  The army has everything it needs to function properly, just in an odd, stilted way given the peculiar strength of its baseline troops.  Speaking of stilts…in the context of allied Assassins, what on earth are we meant to do with the Sydonian Skatros?  At this point it truly has no legs to stand on, pun intended, in the army and the Imperial Agents still being extremely reasonable to take has only exacerbated this issue.  The Skatros would have to be maybe 30 points to be good, but at that point, it might be too good, routing us back to pre-errata Admech where the palliative measure was to make all of our least bad units cheap, at least.

Via Reddit

In total, I think Admech could use a mild facelift before the end of 10th Edition, as we’re more than halfway through it at this point.  Being one of the earliest armies to receive a codex, I’ve been excited throughout for the faction, even at its worst, and I look forward to seeing how things change in the future!

With that, we’re now playing the waiting game for the next dataslate, for Admech!  What sort of alterations do you want to see?  Have you found a ‘secret sauce’ Data-Psalm list?  I’d love to hear what you’ve been brewing in the comments below!