So this coming Sunday, the 15th, myself and fellow Brewers Matt and Jay will be taking part in another Purple Sparkly Unicorns (a local Warhammer gaming group) tournament. You can check out the full calendar of PSU tournaments at this link.

This one dayer is 1250pts of Warhammer 40,000. No more than two detachments, keeping everyone on a similar playing field.

3 games of 40k, with points for sporting behaviour and painting up for grabs.

I have decided, with Psychic Awakening: Engine War on the horizon to go back to an army I love, the Adeptus Mechanicus. Quite a bit of this was painted some time ago, so it’s cool to see how my painting is evolving as time goes on.

So what am I planning on taking? Let’s run through the army

Adeptus Mechanicus: Mars

Detachment: Battalion

HQ: Belisarius Cawl [Warlord]

Love playing Mars, and this guy is a must take. The big guy himself, Cawl has so many benefits. Re-roll hits within a 9” aura (increased aura due to the Warlord trait he must take) and having the ability to move dice rolls up and down by one on the Canticles table is huge.

Playing Mars allows me to roll twice on the Canticles table, almost ensuring I can get Shroudpslam (cover save on everything with the Mars keyword!) when I really need it!

HQ: DX-06 Tech Priest Dominus

Rounding out my HQ choices I always provided another back up of rerolls, in this case with a Tech Priest Dominus!

He was one of the first models I built for the army, and happened to have picked up the Hero bases around the same time. The Leman Russ Battle Tank base looked a perfect fit for this guy!

Giving out rerolls of 1 for shooting, as well as not being too bad in combat!

No Force Organisation Slot: Inquistor Eisenhorn

My Inquistor is currently in the hands of Jay, so no images of him at this stage!

Long time listeners of the podcast will know I love the Inquistion, and with the new rules from White Dwarf published back in December any Imperium army can now take one without taking up a detachment slot. Your Inquistor will not disrupt any army-wide abilities, such as Canticles in my case, although of course he cannot benefit from them.

An Inquistor gives me the chance to throw a psychic power out and deny my opponents, in the case of Eisenhorn I get 2 of each. He also provides nearby Imperium units his own leadership, although with my minimal sized units I doubt this will come up.

Troops: Kataphron Destroyers

I remember saying to Matt and Jay when I first started Adeptus Mechanicus that I really didn’t like the look of these guys.

Oh how tastes change, now I love them!

These pack some serious firepower and have consistently done well for me. The downside of that is they tend to get shot very early on, and the loss of each one is painful. I chose to build only the one with a Grav Cannon, as the lure of two multi shot strength 6 plasma guns was just too much!

Troops: Skitarii Rangers (3 x Units of 5)

The backbone to every Mechanicus army, the Rangers provide long range firepower and make ideal objective holders.

What’s not to love about the long coats and 30″ range rifles? Each unit has a Arc Rifle within in for a little more punch (although I’ve realised I’ve only painted the one Arc Rifle, so the Plasma Culivern seen in the image will have to be used as an Arc Rifle, sorry opponents!)

Troops: Skitarii Vanguard

My most recently painted unit, the Vanguard trade in the long rifles for something much more short range, however with 3 shots each they provide lots of firepower!

Sadly I normally throw these forward to get in range…which gets them killed. Will try to use them a little more cleverly in this weekend’s tournament!

No Force Organisation Slot: Vindicare & Eversor Imperial Assassins

Again, I’m going to be using White Dwarf to access more datasheets! Back in July GW released updated rules and stratagems for the Imperial Assassins.

You can either use these as a special Vanguard detachment (which is no good for me as I’m limited to two detachments) or you can spend 2 CP during the Deployment phase and choose one of the four assassins to bring into your army.

Whilst you still need to have the points to pay for them during thew army building process (they each cost 85pts, so just ensure you leave that amount free), by spending 2 CP this gives you the flexibility during deployment to introduce the right Assassin depending on your opponent.

Sadly I only have 50% of the assassins right now, and I think my choice of which one takes to the field of battle will depend heavily on my deployment area. I atleast have the option of sniping with the Vindicare or getting up close and personal with the Eversor.

Certainely something for my opponent to think about!

Heavy Support: Apollo-22 Onager Dunecrawler

Ah the Dunecrawler with Neutron Laser. Normally perched near Cawl, this thing should always bring home the bacon, and yet, underperforms quite a lot for me. That is, until more recently!

I love the spider tank, and I’m hoping he can dish out more pain against those heavily reinforced tanks I’ll be up against!

Detachment: Super Heavy Auxiliary

Lord of War: Knight Errant

A massive chunk of my army rests on the shoulders of my Knight Errant!

Armed with the Thermal Cannon and Reaper Chainsword, and hailing from House Taranis, this huge walking robot will hopefully slay all those in his path!

Like the Dunecrawler, he has been known to under perform, however when in the right mood he can be a bullet magnet, distracting my opponent from the other stuff in my army and then going on to destroy whatever is trying to take him down!

Army Summary

So I’ve used two detachments, the limit of which we can take for this one day tournament, however by using the updated rules for the Inquistion and Assassins I’ve been able to sneak in some added units!

With the Assassins this does come at a cost of 2 CP, and considering I’m only starting the game with 5 CP means I’ll just have 3 CP for the battle itself. I have a plethora of cool strats across the various units, so I’ll have to be very selective on what I use, and hope I don’t whiff any of the rerolls!

My army is quite small, but packs a fair amount of firepower. Cawl and the Dominus provides rerolls to ensure I get those hits in, whilst the Knight hopefully stomps up the battlefield drawing attention away from my objective grabbing units.

Will I win the tournament? Nope, I imagine not! Will I have fun rolling dice and showing folks what the power of Mars can do? Oh yes!

I’ll just hope not to come bottom this time…

Looking to the Future

Now I’m back on the Ad Mech bandwagon I can’t wait to pick up some more units!

Before Engine War is launched I intend to grab some Infiltators, a Dunerider (or potential two!), another Dunecrawler and some Electro-Priests. I’d like to drop the Knight and take this list up to 2k of pure Adeptus Mechanicus.

As my painting has improved I’d also like to revisit some of my older units and try to ‘clean’ them up, bringing them closer to a standard I can now achieve.

Published by David Jennings

Born and raised in Crewe in Cheshire, Dave is a geek through and through. Enjoys designing and managing websites. View all posts by David Jennings