Adeptus Mechanicus Codex Review - Leaders and Crusade

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Welcome back, Princeps, to our coverage of the new Adeptus Mechanicus codex.  We continue today with the Warlord Traits, Relics, and Crusade rules for the new book.

WARLORD TRAITS

The codex hands you Warlord Traits based on your leader’s background as either a Tech-Priest or a Skitarius.  The book provides six Warlord traits for each character type and of course there is the Forge-World specific one available.  Briefly, the options are:

·         Tech-Priest

o   Emotionless Clarity allows a single CULT MECHANICUS CORE unit to charge during a turn in which it Fell Back.

o   Masterwork Bionics provide a 4++ and damage reduction.

o   First-hand Field Testing  adds 1 strength to a non-relic weapon.

o   Necromechanic auto restores 3 wounds from Master of the Machines.

o   Cartogrammatist allows a CULT MECHANICUS CORE unit to be held in reserves in the same vein as the Lucius stratagem.

o   Supervisory Radiance allows a single CULT MECHANICUS CORE unit a re-roll to-hit buff.

·         Skitarii (Looking at you here, Skitarii Marshal)

o   Note that all of these apply to a SKITARII CORE unit within a certain distance OR a CORE DATA-TETHER unit.

o   Multitasking Cortex allows a single unit to shoot and still conduct actions without failing.

o   Battle-sphere Uplink allows a single unit to ignore penalties to firing for certain conditions.

o   Programmed Retreat allows a single unit to shoot in a turn in which it Fell Back.

o   Archived Engagements allows a single unit in Engagement Range to fight first.

o   Firepoint Telemetry Cache provides a single unit cover and save bonuses, even if in the open.

o   Eyes of the Omnissiah provides a single unit with re-rolls to Advance and charge rolls.

All of these Warlord Traits are very beneficial and the strength of the Warlord Traits for a Skitarii Marshal leading Titanguard type units will increase their versatility on the battlefield.  However, there is no doubt that the Tech-Priest directly taking to the field of battle while Titans rage around can himself do some serious work to keep support elements fighting at their best.

RELICS

There are a LOT of relics here, twelve of them to be precise, and this doesn’t include the Forge World unique ones that were briefly discussed in the prior article.  Some of our favorites are:

·         The classic Uncreator Gauntlet rocking in at power fist stats with D3 and the ability to do a Mortal Wound to a VEHICLE as long as you hit.

·         Purgation’s Purity, a radium weapon with a healthy range, average strength with good AP and 2 damage, and a 4+ will always wound.

·         Exemplar’s Eternity which allows a Skitarii Marshal to have a complete 6” bubble for hit and wound rolls of 1.

·         The return of the Phosphoenix as an Assault 3 weapon with S5, power sword worthy AP and 2 damage each while ignoring some cover effects and having an aura.

o   This gun got seriously mean this time around.

SECONDARY OBJECTIVES

Honestly, these aren’t that impressive and they feel bog-standard.  They’re your typical assassinate leaders or hold objectives, the latter of which are the main ones AdMech gets.  They’re organized from a fluff standpoint, but there’s just nothing truly special here.  The word “meh” describes them pretty well.

MECHANICUS ON CRUSADE

Crusade as a game add-on has been wonderful for narrative players.  For many of us, Titanguard are us turning to the fluff in our hobby and are a natural fit for Crusade.  The Mechanicus gets their Crusade love in the new codex and it’s pretty extensive.

Agendas in the codex range from destroying the enemies prized vehicles to hunting for archeotech, which is extremely fluffy.  Of course there’s also an agenda for just controlling the battlefield, in case your thing is to just completely wipe the board. 

Perhaps one of the more exciting Crusade options is the ability to assemble archeotech!  If you have the Requisition Points and the parts you need you get to make something pretty cool.  All you need are a power source (which has a plethora of options/possibilities) and another archeotech part and you get to make something cool, new, and hopefully very deadly.  Not bad for spending only 1 RP.  We’ll probably go more in-depth on this in a later review, but suffice it to say this is a really cool system and it spans four pages and allows you to create some very unique items in-game.

Then of course you get into creepy things like body donors so you can just swap your dead flesh, perfectly Mechanicus there, or access to the Holy Orders for your Tech-Priests.  What you can do with this codex is amazing for requisition.

Battle Traits for the Mechanicus are rather simplified, essentially breaking down into Tech-Priests, Skitarii Marshals, Core and Kataphron, or Vehicles.    This is a simplification that keeps things nice and easy.  To make things kind of fun, the Skitarii Marshal can even net himself some Secutor Class Blade Implants, just think Mantis Blades from the Cyberpunk setting.  And if you have a Tech-Priest you really want to keep alive you cannot go wrong with repair protocols giving you a Feel No Pain type save.

We’re not going to touch on the Crusade Relics here but we do want to note that weapon enhancements for AdMech rely on the weapon type (arc, plasma, cognis, phosphor, etc.).  Where AdMech Battle Traitrs are simplified, the weapon enhancements are where things get granular.