The Forge Worlds of the Adeptus Mechanicus have been running round the clock to fuel the insatiable war machine of the Imperium. Mighty armies of robots, Omnisirah cults and deadly warmachines march against the enemies of the Imperium, bringing their high tech weaponry to bare. Today, their forces are bolstered with the latest Warhammer 40,000 Codex for 10th Edition in the form of Codex Adeptus Mechanicus, and the awesome new Syndonian Skatros sniper!

In this review we’ll be checking out both the new kit and the new book, taking a look at all the new detachments and seeing what they do on the battlefield and finding out if much has changed from the free index list that released at the start of 10th edition.

Massive thanks to Games Workshop for sending us free review copies to check out on the site. If you would like to support the site then why not order your copy through our affiliate Element Games and save yourself money too?

We’ve also filmed a full unboxing of the new Skatros, which you can see just below or over on YouTube!

We’ve also got a full review of the new 10th Edition Necron codex too which you can check out right here! That’s not all though, as we have also filmed a full Crusade Battle Report using the two new books, which should be up on YouTube to watch very soon!

So without further ado let’s check out what is new in Codex Adeptus Mechanicus.

Codex Adeptus Mechanicus (2023) Review

So unless you have been sleeping under a rock for the last few months, the new 10th edition of Warhammer 40k has landed to much fanfare. As part of the release of the game, Games Workshop released rules for all factions along with a free detachment that represented one of the core ways that the army operates. They also released free Combat patrol rules that allows players to get started and play by simply picking up a Combat Patrol box, without having to worry about list building.

So with all this content available for free, the big question we had was just what would be available in the Codex once released? Well, Games Workshop have for the most part kept rules and abilities the same, just tweaking things here and there based on feedback and playtesting following the initial Index, and have expanded out the available Detachments to 5 including some pretty big reworks of the original one. We’ll be having a full deep dive into what all of these detachments do, and delve into the awesome narrative Crusade content later in this review.

As ever, the first half of the book covers the lore, where players can find out just who the Adeptus Mechanicus are, how they operate and loads of information about the various units. While returning players will know a lot of this, I always find it really gets your creative juices flowing when deciding to put together a new army. This is really boosted by the fact that in a lot of cases with Detachments you’ll be leaning into different makeups of army, giving you lots of differing building blocks in how you assemble your force.

We get a nice miniatures gallery too showing off the entire Mechanicus range – even when you can easily google miniatures pictures for reference, call me old school but I still like to have a physical book that I can look at when I’m painting models.

So what’s new in the book? Let’s take a look and check out what is within!

Combat Patrol

One of the interesting additions to 10th Edition was Combat Patrol. As mentioned earlier this was a way of playing 40k without having to build an army list, instead you simply bought any Combat Patrol box with each of them having balanced rules to use them against each other. I think this is a great idea and makes playing the game much more accessible to new players. In the case of Adeptus Mechanicus, they get a brand new Combat Patrol box up for pre order today and rules for that box in the form of Purge Corps Deltic-9

The army consists of Manipulus Skand, a unit of Vanguard, a unit of Sulphurhounds and a unit of Pteraxii Sterylizors. In cash value that would all cost £132.50, so with the price tag of £95 you basically get the box of Sulphurhounds free, which is a great deal, especially if you can pick up the box for less that RRP from places such as Element.

Skand gets to pick from two enhancements, the first makes all weapons targeting his unit -1 to wound, or if you rather be a little more aggressive you can select the option to increase the range of all weapons in his unit by 6″ and grant them Ingores Cover

The Combat Patrol gets a choice of two Secondaries – the first has your opponent select a non monster and non vehicle unit from their army, and if you can destroy it you gain 12 points. Meanwhile the other option is to gain 3 points each turn if there are no enemies in your deployment zone – personally I like the first one as you have got some nice units you can be pretty aggressive with!

For Strats we get a nice trio, one giving a unit a 5+ Feel No Pain, one that allows you to fall back and shoot and/or charge (Which is amazing on the hounds) and finally the ability to increase your AP at the cost of gaining the hazardous keyword.

This looks a really fun set, and I think there’s some good value here for existing players too to incorporate into their main army.

Detachments and Army Rules

So what of the core rules for the army? Well the Doctrina Imperatives still exist in the same form – essentially this allows you to pick one of two different abilities, you can either gain Assault on all your weapons (allowing you to run and shoot) and get additional AP when targeting units in your enemies deployment zone, or instead gain Heavy giving you plus one to shoot when standing still, and worsen the AP of incoming fire if you are standing in your deployment zone. There’s pros and cons for both, and will really depend on your army makeup and play-style which one you will want to lean into. Personally, I’m a big fan of running and gunning with big units of Breachers shooting away on the move at increased AP, especially as they get to reroll hits if they are near Skitarii. Equally though, with a different army build you might rather sit back and get the benefits of +1 to hit from heavy.

Rad Zone Corps

The first Detachment is a reworked version of the Rad Zone Corps and now it’s a lot better. One of the downsides of the original version was that being battleshocked isnt always a massive downside in the first turn as you often can’t score in that turn anyway. Due to this people opted to simply take the battleshock rather than taking Mortal Wounds.

Now however the opponent has a more difficult decision. At the start of the turn each unit picks if they want to Stand Firm or Take Cover. If they Stand Firm they take D3 Mortal Wounds on a roll of 3+. If they Take Cover they instead they are battleshocked and also take D3 Mortal Wounds on a roll of 5+. Then from turn two, every unit affected takes D3 Mortal wounds on a roll of 3+ and has to take a battleshock test.

This is a brilliant change and makes this a very powerful ability with the threat of shutting down a unit sat on a back field objective and giving a nice spread of Mortal Wounds during the game.

This is made even better with the new Radial Suffusion enhancement (This replaces the old one that could only be taken by a Marshal) and this makes any enemy unit within 6″ of the enemy deployment zone also take tests from the Rad Bombardment!

We see a couple of changes in strats too – Lethal Dosage for example now makes a unit +1 to wound rather than giving it lethal hits, and Bulwark Imperative no longer needs the Protector Imperative to be used! For the majority of the Strategems they also have a new rule where if you target a unit of Skitarii with them you can actually have it affect a second unit of Skitarri within 6″, which is pretty cool.

Skitarii Hunter Cohort

The next detachment is for people who want to lean into a force of sneaky Skitarii Infantry supported by Ironstriders and Cavalry. All of those units gain Stealth, and in addition any Sicaran units get the benefit of cover if they are over 12″ from the shooter. This is pretty cool and makes your army much harder to hit while getting into position to complete objectives.

We get some amazing Skitarii flavoured enhancements here, with the ability to have a unit have both Imperatives active, one that gives a unit infiltrate and Scouts 6″, another that allows 3 Skitarii to be either redeployed or popped into reserves before the first turn begins, or finally a really nice one that allows a unit of Skitarii to move 6″ after it shoots – pop the Assault Imperative and you have got a very fast scoring unit that can shoot before scuttling back into cover.

From a strat pov we have quite a lot of utility such as giving a unit a 5+ Feel no pain, increasing the AP of 2 units but forcing them both to shoot a nominated target, a nice one that simply makes you +1 to wound as long as there are no enemies nearby, One that pops 2 units into strategic reserves at the end of the enemy fight phase (Ready to pop back in your turn), making a unit only targetable if within 12″ and finally my favourite for hounds, one that allows you to charge after advancing – again great comboed with the Assault Imperative allowing your Hounds to cover a great distance before charging into cause Mortal Wounds.

Data Psalm Conclave

Next up we have the detachment for fans of the Cult Mechanicus, and this is another of my favourites! In this one you get the choice of one of two abilities at the start of the game, either give all your Cult Mechancus weapons +1 AP at half range (Which works really well with Breachers armed with Arc, giving them 4 shots at AP -3 at close range!) or to instead give your melee weapons +1 Strength and Attacks when they charge.

As for Enhancements we get a way of freeing a unit from battleshock, one that grants fights first and another that allows a unit to have both of the two Cult abilities active at the same time, but my favourite one has to be mantle of the Gnosticarch which other than being really hard to say when filming a battle report, makes the character change the damage of any attack allocated to them to 1. This is amazing – stick it on a Dominus for example leading a big unit of breachers and the enemy not only has to get through your decent armour, but also a feel no pain roll against the single point of damage. People will be targeting Breachers with weapons that can take them down as quickly as possible, and it’s very easy for your enhanced Dominus to simply tank those hits for the entire game – Now obviously this is a gamble to start allocating wounds to him first, but with this he has got a very good chance of tanking it (Especially if you have a nearby tech priest to heal him up afterwards too!)

They is further enhanced with some decent stratagems such as granting a unit a 4+ inv save, or a 4+ save specifically against Mortal Wounds, allowing you to cover most types of incoming damage. There’s also ways of forcing battleshock tests on a unit and reducing their hit roll, increasing your wound rolls in combat, or electrocuting and causing mortal wounds to all enemy units within 6″ – this works particularly well on Electopriests who want to be in the thick of the fighting anyway!

I really like this detachment, and plan on getting in quite a few games using them!

Explorator Maniple

So this is an interesting detachment that revolves around systematically taking objectives one at a time. At the start of your turn you pick a single objective on the battlefield, and if you or your target are within range of it you reroll wounds of 1. Alone that’s not the greatest, but it comboes really well with the enhancements that all build on this concept.

One gives a you an extra CP if you are near the objective, another gives that unit a 4+ save while on that objective, the next allows you to reroll hits of 1 that target a unit on that objective and finally the last one allows you to change a single hit, wound or save roll per phase into a 6 while sat on the objective. This last one in particular would be nice on a Datasmith to ensure that your robots can bounce back a mortal wound every phase they are shot at.

Likewise, their Stratagems all tend to revolve around this concept with the ability to make your selected objective “sticky” so you can move off it and still control it. Another allows you to have two selected objectives a turn, or to consolidate 6″ towards a selected objective. There’s a few here that have nice interaction between units and transports too, with one allowing smoke to give stealth and cover to both a transport and a nearby unit, or my favourite which allows a unit to embark on a transport parked behind them if a charge is declared on them, making the charge fail and forcing the unit to perhaps attempt a longer charge against the transport or a different target

Cohort Cybernetica

The final detachment in the book specialises in Robots and grants them all the Doctrina Imperatives rule (Which normally they don’t have access to) They are pretty resilient anyway, so this can make them even harder to kill, or instead make shooty robots viable with the ability to increase their AP when shooting into the enemy deployment zone.

They also have some really good enhancements, such as the ability to turn the damage of a failed save on a Cybernetica or Vehicle unit to 0 once per battle round, which can keep these units in the fight against some of the more powerful weapons in the game. And if you regulatory come up against some scary vehicles Master of Machines can stop them from shooting at all! Once per turn you pick an enemy vehicle and make them take a leadership test, on a pass they are -1 to hit when shooting and on a fail they are not allowed to shoot at all that turn. For those who like fireworks theres also a once per turn enhancement that causes a vehicle to explode without having to roll! All of these are pretty fun and this is another one I’m tempted to play with, leaning into lots of robots and vehicles stomping up the battlefield.

As expected all their strats effect vehicles and cybernetica units, with things such as increasing charges, making units able to fall back and shoot with no penalties, or gaining feel no pain saves.

Datasheet Changes

On the whole we don’t see a lot of changes to Datasheets outside of a couple of tweaks I’ve spotted.

Corpuscarii Electro Priests now cause any unit hit by their ranged weapons to reduce their movement, advance rolls and charge rolls by 2″, which is pretty cool!

Sicarian Infiltrators have had somewhat of a buff, they retain the ability to worsen battleshock, but in addition any unit that is in engagement range at the start of the fight phase now have to test for battleshock. This is ace as you can now potentially steal objectives by getting a quick unit of Sicarians in to strip the OC off them!

Sterylizors no longer slow units down by setting them on fire (As that rule is now essentially on the Electropriests), instead they get to reroll wounds of 1 if they are attacking something near an objective, and reroll all wounds if a battleline unit is also nearby

The Cybernetica Datasmith has had a much needed update – Previously he was a bit of a liability as he gave the Infantry keyword to units of Robots – now he loses the keyword when he joins then, making it so that he doesn’t reduce the effectiveness of Robots.

Sydonian Dragoons have now been split into two different units, one with lances which can now charge after falling back (taking advantage of the Lance rule to maximise their fighting prowess) and a unit with Jezzails which now gets to reroll all hits against a nominated target

The Dunerider has had a bit of a rework and now has a cool fire support rule where if it scores any hits against a target, the unit that has disembarked from it gets to reroll wound rolls against that same target.

Dunecrawlers are now really good at supporting units of Skitarii, they now give all Battleline units wholly within 6″ a 4+ Invulnerable save with their force field – think the shield generating droid vehicles from The Phantom Menance!

Fusilaves have lost a little bit of effectiveness, with the bombs now only triggering on a 4+ rather than a 3+, which is a shame

We have one new brand unit in the book in the form of the Sydonian Skatros, a dedicated sniper who can be tooled out to deal with Characters armed with a Precision, Anti Infantry 3+ Jezzail putting out Damage 3 at AP-2 (A pair of those would be very effective of taking out characters sat in units) or can harm vehicles and monsters with a Anti Monster 4+ Anti Vehicle 4+ aqurebus (Though this is only damage D3 so a little less effective).

Whichever weapon he picks he gets to reroll wounds against the keyword his weapon is effective against, and any unit hit by him has to take a battleshock test.

I know the model has been very marmite, but I personally love how very weird he is! He was really fun to build and paint up, and I’m tempted to pick up a second one in order to harass characters!

Crusade

We get a really fun Crusade section in the book that really leans into the fact that the Adeptus Mechanicus are often fighting because the battlefield is a source of Archeotech, or they believe the force they are fighting has got access to knowledge or technology that they want to take back to properly investigate. With that in mind the main campaign hook for the Mechanicus is them trying to find various parts of Archeotech over the course of several battles and use that to craft a number of different unique items. There’s 18 in all across weapons, forcefields and gadgets and it’s exciting when your army manages to find the parts that they need in order to craft that item. Essentially you roll a dice at the end of the game and on a 5+ you have found a part – this can be one of 4 different things, a Power source, a weapon part, a force field part or a techno-arcana part. Once you have the required components you remove them from your log and have a nice new shiny piece of gear to equip on an eager test subject.

In addition to this there is another mechanic that runs parallel where your force has heard whispers of some even rarer and more powerful Archeotech, and over the course of a campaign you try and gather locational data to find where it is. If you opt not to find archeotech parts during a battle you can instead declare you are looking for data – this data is accrued across games and once you think you have enough you can attempt to find the location of the legendary Archeotech, but there’s a risk reward element here as if you fail the test you will actually lose a piece of your precious data. If the test is successful you get a brand new agenda for the next battle in which your opponent places a token in their deployment zone to represent this legendary item, with your force trying to gain control of it during the game. The Legendary pieces are bonkers with fun stuff such as a weapon that nukes the machine spirit of an enemy vehicle reducing its attacks and causing it to take mortal wounds when it moves, or a scanner that can be used to generate CP and give you extra Archerotech parts towards your gear building operations.

This whole section is great fun, and I can’t wait to use it to lead a campaign against the Necrons once the Pariah Nexus book is released early next year

Summary

So what do I think of the new Adeptus Mechanicus Codex? Like with the other Codexes before it, Codex Adeptus Mechanicus gives players a number of different detachments that favour different play-styles and models. One of the criticisms of the Index rules is that they all tend to favour a particular type of army, but now with the new Codex you can lean into any type of army that you fancy, with all of them getting some really fun tools and abilities. This is great, as if you have a large collection you can put together a number of different armies that all work in a different way, making games feel much fresher than being locked to a single way of playing.

While datasheets have had minimal changes, there are some important tweaks here and updates that may make you give a unit a second look.

The Narrative content in the book is great fun and hopefully encourages more people to get involved with Crusade, as I really do think it is the best way of playing 40k!

I’m already planning on adding to my fledgling Mechanicus army, and I’ll be picking up a few different bits so I can put together a number of different flavour armies.

Codex Adeptus Mechanicus, the new Combat Patrol and the Skatros are all up for pre order today and are released on Saturday 9th December

Games Workshop provided Sprues & Brews with free copies for review purposes.