Warhammer 40,000 10th edition is here, and thanks to Games Workshop so kindly giving out all the rules for free, we know exactly how good every army currently is without having to spend a single penny. As well as being a shrewd business decision on the company’s part, it means that all the competitive players can quickly buy Eldar armies and all the Adeptus Mechanicus players can cry into their machine spirits. It’s me, I’m Adeptus Mechanicus players.
If you’re not already familiar with the world of Warhammer 40,000, the AdMech are the Emperor’s engineers. Working with the fascist poster boys of the tabletop game, the Space Marines, they make all the tanks and titans, the lascannons and Leviathan dreadnoughts – you know, all the stuff that makes the game fun. Without the Adeptus Mechanicus and their archaic ways – they say as many prayers as they do build engines when constructing a Land Raider – the Space Marines would have no gear to take to war. Hell, there would be no Space Marines without the AdMech, at least not Primaris ones.
Moving away from the lore and onto the tabletop, the Adeptus Mechanicus are basically robots. They’ve got little robot footsoldiers and big robot mechs, robot horses and robots piloting aircraft. It’s a cool concept and the army has some excellent models, but many players use the existing miniatures range as a platform to springboard onto their own ideas.
As an AdMech player myself, I’m inherently biased, but our armies are often the most creatively converted and interestingly set up. I’ve gone for a Dark Mechanicus vibe for mine, incorporating plenty of Nurgle and Skaven kits despite the fact that my Forge World has not succumbed to the Chaos Gods, instead interpreting the spirit of the Omnissiah slightly differently to the more Codex compliant scions of Mars and Ryza. But I’ve seen many other players interpret the lore in different ways, combining all manner of kits to give their army a unique flavour.
The Adeptus Mechanicus have never been a great army. They’ve certainly been good, and the ability to add in Imperial Knights helps them out a bunch, but they’ve never hit the big time. That said, before 10th edition, they’ve never been terrible either. That’s all changed in the past month.
AdMech are awful now. I’m talking bottom of the pile, down there with the similarly-nerfed Death Guard, who had the unfortunate bonus of losing any thematic rules too. Luckily for us, Adeptus Mechanicus armies still have some semblance of flavour to them, despite the fact that our rules are now based around having irradiated units and atom bombing the battlefield, things which have never been mentioned in the lore.
Players have been debating whether or not the nerf was a mistake, rules were misinterpreted, or if this just slipped past the playtesters. Whatever the reason, we’re just kinda bad now. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve got some decent units in the form of Kataphrons and those trusty Knights, but the army has no real synergy, and it’s difficult to work out exactly how the army-wide special rules actually benefit us. To top it all off, while I expect the Eldar to get a nerf in an FAQ pretty quickly, we’re scheduled for one of the first 10th edition codexes, so we’ll probably have to wait until then to see any changes.
Despite the gutting of our army, many AdMech players are embracing the chaos. No, not that way. Instead of abandoning Mars and picking up a better army, players are coming up with fun lists using the units they like. After all, if even an optimised list will perform terribly on the table, why not just pick your favourite units? The best conversions in my army are the Kataphrons for sure, so I’m excited to wheel them out (except mine don’t have wheels), followed by my Onager Dunecrawler, complete with arm cannon and beer belly. Emperor protect me, I know it looks like heresy, but I assure you it’s not.
The Adeptus Mechanicus have been gutted by 10th edition, and our only hope is a complete overhaul when the codex comes out, with the entire rulebook needing to be practically rewritten. However, players have found some good among the bad, and are embracing other parts of the hobby when competitive battling is out of the question. All we need now is for someone to somehow win a tournament with an army made up entirely of Sicaran Infiltrators. May the Omnissiah be with you, brave soldier.