Litanies of the Faithful

Hello, it is Tuesday again which means it is time for another Tech-Priest Tuesday.

This week we have a new detachment to discuss. The Eradication Cohort is focused around Skitarii, once again leaving my beautiful Cult Mechanicus in the dark – although with a caveat.

I’m almost at my wits end, I’m very close to abandoning the cult and investing into Skitarii stocks.

The detachment rule gives you the ability to re-roll hit rolls of 1, in the Protector Imperative, and re-roll wound rolls of 1 in the Conqueror Imperative.

This is actually very interesting. I’ve really been enjoying list building with Ad Mech lately and wished I had spent my summer holidays painting robots instead of stealing jeans. List building for this army feels so wide open and – thanks to overlapping buffs – is a brewers paradise. Depending on playstyle and list composition you can really play in a way that suits you and aren’t necessarily required to conform to the standard ‘meta’, that is no less true in this detachment.

Protector heavy lists can almost forgo Cawl, as the need for Oath is greatly diminished when every unit in your army is innately re-rolling 1’s. This also increases Thulia stocks which allows a unit to double doctrine, giving re-rolls to wound, or advancing & shooting/charging.

Disintegrators always re-rolling 1’s to wound is fucked too.

A simple, yet relevant and impactful detachment rule.

Enhancements:

The first enhancement, Omnicogitator, allows a Ranger/Vanguard unit to always be in both Imperatives, not bad, not great. Wait, the new Hastarii can be led by a Marshal. This is better, but only really confers the re-rolls to wound part of the detachment as the Marshal already gives re-roll hits. Triple Marshal led Histarii does seem somewhat relevant for the unit. Probably only better when you’re in the Protector Doctrine more often than not.

The next enhancement Martial Sagnatum Aplificator (MSA) lets you put the Skitarii Keyword on a unit which will become more relevant later when we discuss the Stratagems.

Belicosa-Class Capacitor Vanes adds 6″ to the range of ranged weapons, and +1 to the strength of those weapons. Unsure where this will end up. Giving Hastarii an extra 6″ could be cute, strength 13 Las, or any of the other shooting units I suppose. It will be interesting to see where this ends up.

Lastly we have Omnissiah’s Fury giving a Skitarii Marshal +2 attack, and +1 AP and damage in combat. Hilarious. I’ll take it 50% of the time.

Stratagems:

The stratagem suite for this detachment is ok, but seemingly random. It’s not as cohesive as Haloscreed, but still better then any of the other detachments available for Ad Mech.

This does give me the indication that we can expect something better in our 11th edition codex, hopefully.

The tools available through stratagems are:

• Lance – no restrictions.
• re-roll damage in shooting for an Ad Mech vehicle, targeting a vehicle or monster.
• Fall back and shoot, if Skitarii keyword, fall back shoot and charge.
• Impact mortals with Sicarians
• Skitarii unit gets Sustained 1, or Lethals – or both if you choose to get Hazardous (this does work on Vehicles) – only on ranged weapons.
• Shoot back for infantry, provided at least one model was destroyed.

It’s interesting. Servo-Driven Charge has no key word restriction. Unrelenting Aggression works better with Skitarii. Unshackled Wrath is only Skitarii restricted while Threat–Cogitation Targeters is Skitarii Vehicle restricted and Analytic Reprisals is Skitarii Infantry restricted.

I’m sure there are reasons for this but not ones that I can deduce.

Additionally, there is a stratagem that gives Sicarians impact mortals on the charge. I’m not sure I would run many Sicarians in this detachment apart from 2×5 Infiltrators for scoring and Infiltrate.

Ruststalkers are generally very good, but… actually maybe I will run them.

Also, excuse me, but in the detachment synopsis at the top of the faction pack it states that “processions of Electro-Priests surge forward to blast and rend all in their path”, but the only synergy relevant to Electro-Priests in this detachment is a single Enhancement???

I will be giving this one a crack and investigating in more depth when I’ve had the opportunity to play it with the new Hastarii and Thulia.

Thank you for joining me this Tech-Priest Tuesday. Next Tuesday I will be going over my list for an GT on the 18th of April and how I plan to approach each of my games.

If there is anything you’d like to see on this weekly posts please comment and let me know.

Thanks for reading, cya nerds xx