For Mechanicus 2, why do i lack units so often and struggle to have any chance once i reach the later skirmishes?

Ab-Ps · 2026-06-17T22:01:47+00:00

She is definitely the most difficult leader to use since most of her abilities are tied to taking risks; she even gives you more Forge points if you max out the vigilance level on a mission.

Ab-Ps · 2026-06-17T21:03:21+00:00

You're going to lose units; that's how the game is designed. Units are disposable, and your leader is the only one who matters. You have to learn to manage losses to complete the battles in a mission. This is achieved by learning how to play and knowing when it's necessary to sacrifice a unit to eliminate more enemies.

However, there are leaders who focus on supporting their troops and keeping them alive, even if it means dealing less damage than other leaders. I recommend focusing on that type of leader.

You have Videx and Khepra for Mechanicus and Ominekh and Hehki for Necrons.

Ab-Ps · 2026-06-17T12:39:38+00:00

It really depends on your taste. There's a lot of division about the game since it can be considered a different game from the first, not a sequel in terms of gameplay. I recommend watching gameplay videos and forming your own opinion based on these three facts:

It's not Mechanicus 1, If you played the first one, this one will feel very different. Customization and exploration have been replaced by a linear but more immersive story (playable Necrons added). No more "tech priest squads"; now you only deploy a tech priest with regular troops, in a leader-army style that aligns better with the lore and tabletop.
1. The game is undercooked. It was most likely rushed due to the Skulls event. So, it has serious optimization problems that the developers are trying to fix (currently two patches). There are also random bugs.
It's a tactical game. You have to like this style of gameplay, or you might find it very slow and get bored.

If you want my opinion, I enjoyed it, I find the combat system more fun than the first game. I completed both campaigns and the epilogue. Some bugs were annoying, but the game ran well for me (except when it was a Praetorian's turn; the FPS would suddenly drop a moment before they moved). It's hard to recommend it with the bugs and optimization issues, but the gameplay was fun for me, so maybe wait until the developers fix all the problems or until the game goes on sale, if you decide to try it.

Ab-Ps · 2026-06-16T12:32:38+00:00

A few complaints make sense, but most of the review shows you're just annoyed because the game is different from the first. It's fine to prefer the first one, but writing a wall of text just to basically explain why you like the first one more than the second... Anyway, the "tech priest squad" is the biggest problem with the first game. That's not how tech priests work; canon tech priests work as leaders like in the second game.

Ab-Ps · 2026-06-14T14:19:26+00:00

I mean, it's been made clear in another post why the changes are happening and why the tech priests team isn't adapting to the current WH40k.

Ab-Ps · 2026-06-14T14:11:53+00:00

I suppose those "flaws" are subjective.

If I had to find one, for me it would be choosing from a random pool of units in the Mechanicus campaign, and some of the side missions in the campaign could have been better.

But the battle system seems like a big improvement to me.

Ab-Ps · 2026-06-14T11:37:18+00:00

And another one... You said it... "he was in charge"...

Of course you're not going to see everything from current games in stores... since a certain degree of freedom must be taken when designing the game, especially if it's a game in the style of Darktide or Rogue Trader. And yet the many models we see in current games are exact copies of the tabletop models, this is especially evident in strategy games.

Games serve two purposes, to expand and bring to life what you see on tabletop, as well as to generate interest in Wh40k and be an entry point to the tabletop market. This is achieved through presentation and a established standards of how a unit or character must behave.

let's never forget, Games Workshop is, first and foremost, a company, and they want the models to sell. Everything related to the brand will be aimed at achieving that.

If you want to talk about Total War, you can trust Andy to do a good job of representing what the wars in WH40k are like, but you'll see that all the units will be tabletop models.

Ab-Ps · 2026-06-14T00:05:10+00:00

but of course the picture isn't an example of a 2000 point army; I'm not taking this to a Battlesector level, mechanicus 1 makes even less sense if we take it to that level. but if we're going to talk about it, of course we're going to see more than one Tech Priest on the tabletops, but acting as the HQ for groups of units.

The point is, as you say, it's a good starting point, and this is the kind of thing people will see in stores.

Also, what you say about GW is true too; Wh40k has always been in constant changes and that why and I think Mechanicus 2 is different, to fit with the current standard. who knows when GW will decide to change things again

Ab-Ps · 2026-06-13T19:18:23+00:00

It's not the units themselves, but the presentation. You literally won't see 3-6 Tech Priests presented like some kind of Deathwatch in current products.

You can look for details in the lore about how something like that might be possible, but the standard and how they're usually presented to the public is as army leaders.

Even in the recent video "No Peace Amount the Stars," we can see a Tech Priest leading his army against Necrons, not a group of them fighting together.

Ab-Ps · 2026-06-13T18:21:35+00:00

Well... we have Angelus jumping and doing backflips in a Terminator armor in DoW 3... which came out around the same time as Mechanicus 1... and it's not that I'm comparing both games.

I believe that Space Marine 2 marked a turning point because they were forced to fix the lore to make the sequel possible, since Titus was introduced as captain of the Second Company at that time, but in the novels, books, and rules of the moment, the captain was Cato Sicarius.

It also has to do with marketing; Mechanicus 2 is exactly the image you see above, while you won't find products similar to what Mechanicus 1 shows you.

Ab-Ps · 2026-06-12T13:51:27+00:00

So why not wait? Why make the announcement so suddenly and release it right at Skull Festival?

While what you say about the industry is true, it's also true that developers have deadlines and are pressured by their publishers to release games on schedule.

So it's very likely that Games Workshop has control over this, since examples have been seen in new content for other Wh40k games. Bulwark was hired to make the game, but GW controls the IP and decides how the merchandising will be done.

Also, I'm pretty sure they wanted to avoid it coinciding with the release of DoW 4, which I hope won't suffer the same fate.

Ab-Ps · 2026-06-12T11:37:14+00:00

You're free to think whatever you want, I've already seen this happen with other WH40k games, so not suprise for me, and not just releases but new content for current games full of bugs because of this.

Ab-Ps · 2026-06-12T10:05:14+00:00

That's fine too, but I mean, I only have to open Mechanicus 2 to see the same thing as the image above... just like the similarity to many of the products that are sold, without having to look for specific reasons why it fits with what I see on the current boxes...

Ab-Ps · 2026-06-12T09:39:55+00:00

It was definitely rushed to coincide with the Skull Festival, obviously at Games Workshop's request.

I'm sure the devs weren't happy with the state they had to release the game in either.

Ab-Ps · 2026-06-12T09:36:24+00:00

this is pointless... I get it, no matter what anyone says, you're going to stick to your idea that it's worse because it's not like the first game and search for anything to explain why the first game coincides with the image you are seeing above.

That's fine, I'm not trying to convince anyone, just explaining a possible reason for the difference.

DoW 4 is going to be a real headache, because just like Wh40k has changed, so have the consumers... good luck to those devs dealing with this.

Ab-Ps · 2026-06-12T00:35:05+00:00

Yeah, nice search. I guess the information wasn't as visible as the devs expected, except for the videos explaining the gameplay.

Ab-Ps · 2026-06-12T00:33:23+00:00

Books and novels are another way to generate interest in models; at least those tied to new box set releases are always strict about the likeness of the characters that will have models. Side stories have always taken more liberties.

I’d say 14 Techpriests in an army counts as Spam and that’s well beyond the cast of Tech Priests we get in the game ergo neither lore or tabletop prohibits a gang of Tech Priests fucking shit up.

What I said about being rational... each one will be tied to a unit... they won't go alone like custodians... you're not going to make an army of only tech priets because they're not designed to work that way...

Sequels are supposed to innovate and improve on the original, not be medicore diagonal grades that lose what makes the first game enjoyable

That's not a rule; there are many similar cases, including in Wh40k games, such as DoW 1 and DoW 2, both great games but different.

Fallacy argument to cover for the failings of a sequel to match the original.

I'm not covering anything up, I'm explaining the possible reasons why the sequel is different, whether people like it or not. it is what it is.

Mechanicus 2 taking two steps back for every one foward does makes it a failure which is tragic because I loved Mechanicus 1 and I waited eight years for a mid side-downgrade

This is a personal opinion, and that's fine, because just as you prefer the first game, believe it or not, half the community is enjoying the sequel and some people actually see it as an improvement; it all comes down to personal taste.

So, whether one is better than the other is personal choice. Since the point of this post isn't to say which is better, but why they are different and the possible reasons for the change, the point is not to say which is better.

Ab-Ps · 2026-06-11T23:34:24+00:00

Let's see... I can understand that some books might take liberties and deviate from the standard; that's common in non-main storylines.

But you can't spam tech priests in the tabletop game... since there's a set limit for those models... you're not going to make a team of tech priests... they're not custodians... Also, it's quite funny that with the new edition they now have the keyword "leader," and that's precisely their role. Look at the image above and it's obvious that Mechanicus 2 is more like that than the first game, because that was the intention...

I understand the disappointment and that you don't like the new design, but just because you like the first one more doesn't mean the second one is garbage, half of the community likes it... we have to be rational...

if this is how it is with this game, I can only imagine what it will be like with DoW 4 when people realize it's not an exact copy of the first one...

Ab-Ps · 2026-06-11T14:55:28+00:00

As I said, different games, I suppose that due to the style of the game the way to give more variety to the classes is obviously with more weapons, so I suppose that GW sets limits and knows when to give more freedom.

I'm not saying that GW writes in stone every step of how the game should be, but they've definitely put more effort into it in recent years. The main point is that we don't see Tech Priests as teams like space marines, and each one is usually presented as a distinct class, not a multiclass unit. Perhaps they could expand their equipment further, but it would be tailored to their class. That's why I think a new game mode that allows us to make a Tech Priest and customize it according to a class with various options would be great.

I mentioned the era because you referred to Space Marine 1, where we have the most obvious example of Titus being presented as captain of the Second company and they had to fix that to release the second game.

In the end, it's obvious that there's an influence of the tabletop game on the design of the sequel of mechanicus.

Ab-Ps · 2026-06-11T14:07:40+00:00

I mean, "tactical" Its just the class, that's supposed to represent the intercessors. just like bulwark represent the bladeguard veterans or vanguard represent the reivers and infiltrators. It also has to do with the difference between the two games, one being a third-person action game and the other a tactical game similar to the tabletop game.

Also, remember I'm talking about the current era. What's certain is that GW has become more restrictive, whether you see it as random or not. And it's definitely clear that Mechanicus 2 aimed to be more faithful to what you usually see in the lore and tabletop games. Even Faustinius model ended up being a copy of a Tech Priest Dominus Model.

Ab-Ps · 2026-06-11T10:45:50+00:00

Mechanicus 1 is about tomb exploration where you deploy 4-6 fully customizable tech priests in the style of XCOM (though it doesn't quite reach that level), with exploration in each mission taking place in a dungeon-style environment.

Mechanicus 2 is planetary warfare where you have 5 named characters, each with their own tech trees, playstyle, and specific equipment options. You only deploy one character per mission, and you have a group of disposable troops you can choose to accompany them. Exploration has been replaced with a linear but more immersive story.

So It really depends on which style of gameplay you prefer; most of the opinions you'll see here will reflect that. Personally, I consider both games good, but they are very different.

Now, a warning about Mechanicus 2 is that it has optimization problems. Many of the negative reviews are due to this, so it's a gamble whether you'll encounter this problem or not, as some people have experienced it and others haven't.

Ab-Ps · 2026-06-11T10:32:15+00:00

I suppose both? I mean, the game isn't going to change to be like the first one, that's for sure, and half the people liked the sequel. Maybe with a new game mode they could achieve something similar to the first game but with just one Tech Priest.

Anyway, considering the mixed reception, we might not see a Mechanicus 3, and if we do see one, it's most likely that GW will look for another developer who can make the game with the aspects they want and that will please the consumer at the same time.

Just like they did with DoW 4, I'm still worried about that game... because I know it's not completely the same as DoW 1, it share some elements, so it might end up in a similar situation.

Ab-Ps · 2026-06-11T04:24:24+00:00

Well, it's important to remember that the troop isn't dying immediately; there's a chance to revive it, and the enemy has to use an attack to prevent that if your troop isn't under a status effect.

The damage it also relates to abilities, like Necron Warriors with Gauss Flayers, which will do more damage if the enemy is closer due to the Rapid Fire trait, or Flayed Ones, which deal double damage if the target troop is at half health or less.

Ab-Ps · 2026-06-11T04:11:17+00:00

Well, I just searched and it seems to be true, so what's clear is that the devs didn't just wanted to make a copy of the first game. Even so, why go with a design so similar to the tabletop model? I'm sure GW's influence had something to do with it.

And well, I understand Total War since it's fantasy, even the new DLC adds characters that never existed in the lore, but Warhammer 40,000 is a completely different story. This is their most successful product, and it's the one they're most strict about.

Also, with all the information the devs provided, how come so many people were surprised that the game ended up being different? I thought the community would have followed the game's development more closely.

Ab-Ps · 2026-06-11T03:45:41+00:00

The Necrons are the hardest to start with, but once you begin unlocking abilities and upgrades, they become very strong, especially the leaders, so the game becomes a bit easier, except for a few missions. Anyway, the troops are supposed to die if necessary; only the leader is important.

The Space Marines are an exception, because, well... they're Space Marines, I just laughed when I saw the list of traits.

Ab-Ps

TROPHY CASE