Vigilus Defiant: The End of the Tale. The Adeptus Mechanicus Depart

Snow crunched under metallic heels and wiring tread as Servitors reaped their harvest from the field of Kaelec's Bane. Tech Priest Dominus Argentos Viir surveyed his bionic flock as they went about their daily labours.

The dead would serve again, he mused. The flesh was weak, but could be used for gruel. The machine was strong and could be re-purposed.

As the war for Vigilus had continued Viir had indulged in more and more of these human thoughts, particularly when he surveyed the reclamation servitors. Death, it seemed, was the fate of man and machine in the end...

The Despoilers fleet was in full retreat, the Aeladari had not been seen in many days, and whilst the Orcs and xenos-human hybrids, along with bulk of the Chaos forces that chose to ignore Abaddons orders, still posed a substantial threat to the wider conflict on Vigilus, the assault on Kaelec's Bane had lessened.
Viir had issued a full scale disengagement, and his forces had spent many hours ferrying precious Blackstone off the planet in bulk haulers. 
The icestorms buffeted the hauler as it rose and broke through the cloud cover, accelerating into the void. The servitors piloting the ship registered nothing more than minor turbulence as the shock wave of a nuclear detonation rocked the craft. A mechadendite extended out from under Viirs sleeve and connected into a port on the ship. 
Using the ships scrying tools as his eyes his witnessed his "death" below...Xenos agents had infiltrated the facility, hidden aboard the resupply convoy. They had sabotaged the reactor, and the facility had detonated. Viir was lost, as were all elements of the Mechanicus defenders of Kaelecs Bane.

It had been several days since the last assault on the hidden Mechanicus facility he had been defending... and Imperial communications were beginning to suggest his War was over.

Imperial records, of course, would note these convoys as strategic resupply. Viir has strict orders to obscure any records of the Blackstone facility, and he would execute as ordered.

*****

The ice-fields faded away as the last convoy rose, and Viir sat immobile in his restraints. He body was on hauler, but his mind was still in the complex below, executing his final orders. 

So would be the official story.

If he were capable of laughing, Viir thought he might find this funny. But his war was over, and he would no longer indulge such human fancies. 

The holds of his fleet were packed with a rich bounty, a bounty the Fabricators of Pitar Tertius were anxious to receive

******

So ends the Tale of Vigilus, and our Muster is complete.

I wanted to take this opportunity to reflect on the tale, my feelings about the Adeptus Mechanicus and what the future holds for this army.

A lot of this I kind touched on in the End of Month 6 post, but I felt that needed expanding on - especially in light of the 'Tournament' weekend we just went on.

And I say 'Tournament' in inverted commas, because it actually never went ahead. Unfortunately due to poor attendance and some last minute drop-outs the event was cancelled, so we Four Warlords ended up just playing out a 1500 point doubles game with our event lists.

How did that game go?

Unfortunately Neil and I lost... again. But the game played out exactly as all our previous ones.

Neil and Tim both have lists build around a really solid core of Primaris Space Marines; 3+ Save, 2W models are really durable, but Bolt Rifles only offer so much in the way of threat. James' Custodes and some of my Mechanicum (particularly the  Kataphrons and Dragoons) carry a lot more threat, and so inevitably James and I suffer the brunt of the early aggression. 

I, unfortunately, gambled with the positioning of my forces a bit and overextended, leaving my primary damage pieces vulnerable to a counter attack. With my heavy hitters dead Neil was up against two pretty resilient armies and the conclusion was pretty clear.

The game was actually closer than I made it sound when you consider the objectives - we were playing with the Tactical Objectives cards which can lead to some quite varied games. We both had some good and bad luck with the cards, and ultimately I think the game played out pretty well. I enjoyed the loss, and I think it highlighted some really good strengths and weaknesses in the force.

What do I think of the Adeptus Mechanicus?

As the first army I've really really committed to outside of Space Marines I'll say this... troops are bad...

Now most of my experience with Marines pre-dates 8th edition AP rules when a 3+ save was great, and 2+ was godly. But god damn... troops are bad.

I've never been a min-max player but feel I need to be with non marine armies, because frankly... Vanguard/ Rangers are useless.

The Kataphrons mind you... they did work. The Plasma Culverin is great, especially when combined with the "re-rolling 1's" bubble from the Tech Priest Dominus to prevent self-immolation. 

Every game I play, however, I get the feeling these guys would do better with the Grav cannon. Heavy 5 seems better than Heavy D6, especially with the damage bonus I get against 3+ save models...  but I know our "Tale" meta was multi-wound, 3+ save heavy and Grav is statistically better in that environment. So it's tricky.

The Dunewalkers are pretty solid. I love the Icarus array - the number of shots you can pump out is great, and with the +2 to hit Stratagem he's just a workhorse (especially with those re-rolling 1's). I think he'd work just as well/ better in a non Primaris/ Custodes meta as a way of consistently chipping wounds off big infantry mobs/ dealing with fliers and jetbikes and it's swiftly become a staple of my lists.

The stand out for me though has been my Dragoons. Exploding hits on 4+, -2 to hit from outside 12" (with Stygis VIII) and 6 wounds... these guys are monsters. But at £35 a head I can see why, and I suspect it's price, coupled with lack of viable support, that limits these guys use in tournament play.

What's next for the AdMech?

To be honest... I'm not sure. I feel like I've simultaneously come a long way and not very far at all with the AdMech. Building towards a 750 doubles list is pretty restrictive, and whilst I've got some great units in my collection there's some I've never used! (I'm looking at you, Kastelan Robots!)

The unused minority in my collection

There's also a fair few models in the AdMech range I'm just not that keen on - the Kastelan Robots and Electro-priests topping that list.

And unfortunately these units, particularly the Electro-Priests, are some of the most competitive units you can get. 

That being said, I didn't like the Kataphrons until I bought some... so there's hope for the Electro-Priests yet. The Skorpius kit does a lot to enable/ bring down the cost of running the Alpha-strike Electro-Priest list too, so maybe I'll invest in 10 and a Skorpius Dunerider to check it out.

If I get nothing else for the AdMech I'd be disappointed, but I think after 6 months of collecting I do need a break from them (other silver projects will certainly help!)

What about the Imperial Knights?

Now I'll be honest... I didn't intend on going quite so hard on these guys when the Tale began... but DAMN if they're not gorgeously addictive models.

Lovely to paint, brilliant center pieces, and amazing additions to my collections... I'm so happy to have 5 (3 Titanic Class and 2 Armiger class), and I really want more!

And...

I hate them...

Knights are not fun to play against. 

Hear me out!

I'm not going to say they're broken, but they are game warping. If a knight is on the table it's an ever-present threat, especially in Imperial lists backed up by some form of high CP-generation. It's not unkillable, and it doesn't guarantee a win, but it does force you're opponent to have to always consider every movement carefully because a 400 point knight will, given the chance, delete 1 unit per turn... unless that unit is another Knight.

They just distort the way the game plays (at least at my level) to the point that it's not enjoyable.

But I did recently get gifted the new Knight box for Apocalypse... so there three more additions to the Knights at least.

How's the collection looking?

Here's where it get's fun.

It's been 6 months since the Tale started, and in the Intro post I shared my original AdMech force:

A Tech Priest Dominus, 5 Skitari Rangers and 10 Skitari Vanguard

(and an undocumented Knight Armiger, which I forgot to add to the photo)

Since then I've painted:

11 Skitarii Rangers

7 Skitarii Vanguard

1 Tech Priest Enginseer

1 Tech Priest Dominus

10 Secutarii Hoplites

5 Sicarian Infiltrators

3 Kataphron Destroyers

2 Kastelan Robots

1 Cybernetica Datasmith

3 Sydonia Dragoons

2 Onagar Dunecrawlers

1 Knight Crusader

1 Knight Gallant

1 Knight Questoris Styrix

1 Knight Armiger

Original collection - 426 points

Collection to date - 3237 points

Total Painted - 2811 points.

That's some going in 6 months! Others will do better, including some of my fellow Warlords, but I'm happy with that drive.

To go from "I can't play 8th" to "I can play 8th, and I've got choice with army builds" is a good feeling for only 6 months

Finally - do the Mechanicus have a future?

Yes... I think so. You don't collect 3k of an army without enjoying it.

I've recently gotten in to Kill Team, and I plan on adding some Ruststalkers to the collection for that. 

I'm also eyeing up some more Kataphrons to try out the Ryza army build.

And of course, what Adeptus Mechanicus collection would be complete without Belisarius Cawl!

I've enjoyed the AdMech - Aesthetically they're unique to assemble and paint, and they're fun to play. I need to spend more time exploring the other units, and then we'll see.

The Knights have helped forge the collection into something bigger than just AdMech, and have me aspiring to complete more varied Imperial Projects to create something special.
What I hope to do over the coming months is take a break from the AdMech, wait to see how 40k develops and what new things we see, explore the AdMech in different arenas (like Kill Team/ KT: Elites), and slowly add some extra variety to my collection where spare funds allow.

As cheesy as it sounds it's not "goodbye" - It's "see you soon"...

or whatever that is in binaric cant!

<< Tech-Priest Dominus Medge... signing off >>