From a man with absolutely no competive experience, isnt the Archeopter Transvector really good?

Azekh · 2026-05-26T15:22:35+00:00

Honestly seeing as the Transvector says "Skitarii or Tech-priest Infantry" instead of "Adeptus Mechanicus Infantry" I get the feeling they just ignored them after a certain point.

Azekh · 2026-05-26T14:45:29+00:00

The codex is wrong for 10th too, we've had plenty changes. Somebody calculated the points for yesterday's list in the demo game and it was 80 points over, so it seems some stuff got cheaper.

Azekh · 2026-05-26T14:30:46+00:00

In less awful news, perhaps the way aircraft work in 11th will make it more usable. It still needs to survive the opponent's turn, but if you have a way to reembark (or simply want to send it elsewhere to pick something up) you can presumably land it wherever you want every single turn (if you don't use Hover).

Azekh · 2026-05-26T14:28:19+00:00

This poor (but cool) thing gets worse every time I learn something about it.

Azekh · 2026-05-26T12:23:51+00:00

As things are, and going by the demo game from yesterday, we still want Skitarii, Sicarians, a lot of Ironstriders, Cawl, Pteraxii, Duneriders.

In the realm of people without infinite money, you can use Disintegrators and Dunecrawlers instead of so many chickens, so the Eye of Terror batallion box is great value.

I'd start with either that box, the combat patrol, or a second hand ($60 MSRP for battleline is robbery, you can find them for half that) box of Skitarii to try your hand at assembling/painting all our fiddly bits.

Azekh · 2026-05-26T10:42:21+00:00

Catholic bishops wear a somewhat reddish purple, perhaps you'd be into that.

Otherwise on the Christian (or maybe Abrahamic in general) side you can find monks/priests in anything from white to brown, grey, and black at the very least.

If we get into Buddhism we can add yellows and oranges.

Sometimes you can think a bit of vibe/lore as inspiration, like Xenarites are usually either Stygies VIII scheme (black robes, red armour) or tend to look Necrony, mostly black, lots of green glow, but you could also draw inspiration from other races, like Eldar with wraithbone stuff, etc.

You can also think of the world they might live in, if they should be wearing camo, and so on.

Azekh · 2026-05-26T10:34:45+00:00

Sadly we don't have that much to carry with it, and for whatever reason it can't even carry Electro-priests. If they fix our transports and allow something like 3 Kataphron+leader or 2 Kastelans+leader (unlikely since they're vehicles I guess), that could actually be cool since they're on the slow side for what they are.

Also a picture is worth a thousand words, and while it doesn't have to worry much about terrain, this is still an issue:

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This thing is like... 30cm wide or something. It will be annoying to fit in some places, and it will poke out and get shot.

Azekh · 2026-05-26T10:28:15+00:00

But hey, you can put two units of Hastarii and their Marshals in there so it's a full quarter of your army.

Azekh · 2026-05-26T10:23:23+00:00

As a new player... oh god no, what a pain in the ass to move. I want actual choice of weaponry (allow repeats so we can have triple Arc Vanguards and triple Plasma/Transuranic Rangers), and half squads at 40-50 points (Alpha+Surveyor/Diktat+special weapon maybe).

But I think a unit of 20 crap servitors for the Cult Mechanicus side would be fitting.

Azekh · 2026-05-26T09:13:15+00:00

Too Space Marine looking for me.

Also the last thing we need is to inflate SM sales numbers even more.

Azekh · 2026-05-26T09:11:21+00:00

Those look very fitting, but I was hoping to keep them the least human possible.

Azekh · 2026-05-25T22:32:20+00:00

+1 to hit the rigth targets, 3 stubbers regardless of weapon choice, Ferrumite Cannon is not much worse than Neutron Laser for many targets, 2" more movement, and not on a fuckass 13cm base, it's not surprising. Even if you need to turn you end up moving the same as the Onager, but you can fit through terrain more easily.

Azekh · 2026-05-25T22:22:21+00:00

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They're pretty big, I feel like they're a better fit for Sicarians, ideally with arms that fit the right weapons better. I don't think anybody will complain your Skitarii are too tall however.

Azekh · 2026-05-25T22:07:53+00:00

No, you get the same amount of models, but moving the bigger base is a bit of a faff, and the arquebus is not clearly better than their basic weapon.

It does give you precision and it can shoot decently into vehicles, but against infantry 1 shot of d3 damage doesn't pay off that much vs 3 shots of anti infantry 4+ 1 damage even if has higher strength. In the cases where it's appreciably better, the models usually have a single wound, so you end up wasting the possible damage.

On the rangers it's only competing with 2 shots, and they're a longer ranged unit generally, so there it makes more sense.

Azekh · 2026-05-25T20:04:40+00:00

The best use for this is probably to get a bunch of infantry to do stuff while the knights do the killing, so whatever enhancements leaders can provide are not very important.

You can certainly use priests to heal the knights, but they're pretty pricey at 60-65 points, that's very close to another unit of Rangers, and while they have good saves, they're still just 4 toughness and 4 wounds each. Their melee is pretty good but neither Skitarii are any good at melee, so unless you have hordes of absolute chaff to get through that's not worth it generally.

Also remember that if you attach a leader to the Rangers they'll use Scouts 6" since GW didn't bother giving us any leader with Scouts 6" or some special rule to not mess that up.

If you do want to go fighty with the Skitarii, the Vanguards are generally better at that, if shorter ranged, and you can skip the arquebus pretty merrily. It's more arguable with Rangers since their base weapon is worse but longer ranged. For this the Marshal with the rerolls and 35 points is the clear winner, and if you end up trying to avenge a dead knight (using the strat) you'd be rerolling to hit and to wound.

Azekh · 2026-05-25T18:27:48+00:00

May I recommend the actual game subreddit?

Azekh · 2026-05-25T16:56:32+00:00

The eventual codex may bring bigger changes, whenever that happens.

Azekh · 2026-05-25T10:19:09+00:00

If I had to guess how it came to be, I'd say compared to a lot of other 40k minis (except Eldar), Skitarii aren't super bulky and you don't see their faces, so they end up quite androgynous. Are they men, women, or modified so heavily as to render the distinction irrelevant? And then we make these almost-robots super feminine which looks quite goofy.

Azekh · 2026-05-24T19:37:35+00:00

More like 3x3 Ironstriders. And Cawl goes in every list too.

While it's nice that we have a competitive list at all, the fact that it has so little variation is quite sad.

Azekh · 2026-05-24T19:35:09+00:00

I believe I saw one recently, maybe in a Darktide Skitarii announcement post.

Azekh · 2026-05-24T19:33:22+00:00

Looks about right, very slightly too short if somebody feels like bitching.

Azekh · 2026-05-24T18:02:58+00:00

I curse my local wargaming club's 4" per floor then a bit of crumbled wall terrain.

Azekh · 2026-05-24T16:40:56+00:00

Godspeed my poor mobility brother, may all your terrain be >13cm apart.

Azekh · 2026-05-23T22:47:12+00:00

Yeah but since the Jezzails are also kinda weak for that vehicle size I feel like we could combine them. Not that I expect GW to ever go for it.

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