Skorpius Disintegrator / Dunerider: Adeptus Mechanicus

Product Information

There’s two dedicated transports for the Adeptus Mechanicus, and neither of them is in the codex. The drill is a Forge World model with rules on Warhammer Community (see the link at the top of the article), and the Dunerider is a new unit which was only released in late 2019, and so far its rules are contained only in its own box. Both offer up great options for the Adeptus Mechanicus, and as someone continuously pining for mechanized game play to be good I’m looking forward to pushing around a hillbilly cyborg yacht club. Skorpius Dunerider Things seem reasonably balanced at first glance: The Onager Dunecrawler comes out dead last on this table, which is surprising considering the perception of it as an efficient platform by the player base at large. These numbers don’t tell the whole story though – we should work out how many points we’re paying for each unsaved wound when firing all equipped weapons at the same target. After taking an average of our two most common platforms, the Predator & Leman Russ, we get this: Strong gunline options. Every slot has great shooting options that work against elite and horde armies alike

The multipart plastic kit is comprised of 104 components. It can be assembled with a crewman set in one rear cupola, or with both hatches closed. Assassins also exist, and I find it hard to justify not using one. Having a sideboard and extra downtown threat is worth the 2CP and 85 points. We have a whole article where Wings talks about it using them here, and you can read some tournament reports where I made heavy use of them (mostly the Callidus) here, here, and here. The End of the Line Tech-Priest Dominus [6 PL, 110pts]: Logi (35), Macrostubber (0), Relic (Lucius): The Solar Flare, Volkite Blaster (0), Warlord, Warlord Trait (Lucius): Luminescent BlessingsDogma: The Solar Blessing: When making Saves -1AP becomes 0. Can make your army even more tanky against medium strength shooting. Combined with Shroudpsalm or Prepared Positions this can allow for some surprisingly hard to shift turns. Again, we have a gun that is certainly consistent! This is largely because as the weapon is only S6 and AP -1, its effectively requiring the same to Wound rolls and the same save rolls for each of these targets (with the exception of the Crimson Hunter Exarch). Overall, these are somewhat disappointing numbers. What this tells me is that we might want to consider using the Belleros against infantry models, so let’s see how it fairs against the unit spread used in last week’s Dunerider analysis: I’ve focused mainly on staying within Ad Mech itself, mainly because going all in into Ad Mech tends to require a pretty expensive character and it would be a waste to not get the maximum use out of his aura. However, Ad Mech is still Imperium, and there are all sorts of options out there for mixing and matching. Adding a loyal 32, smash Captains, Librarians, Custodes Shield-Captains, or Inquisitors for denials, or even still stay “pure” (for ITC purposes) with a Knight are all certainly options. Ad Mech also gets splashed all over the place with the “Rusty 17” detachment of 2 Enginseers and 15 Rangers, but I’ve seen and played with adding in just Dragoon or Fulgurite rushes to other Imperium armies, and now that the Skorpius Disintegrator exists three of them and a Dominus is 438 and a ton of varied and self-sufficient shooting.

Rage of the Machines: A VEHICLE can ignore movement penalties for Heavy or advancing with Assault weapons, and can advance and fire cognis weapons. Once you have selected an eligible unit to declare a charge, you must select one or more enemy units within 12" of it as the targets of that charge. The targets of a charge do not need to be visible to the charging unit. Now, let’s work on the iconic red armor of the Skorpius Disintegrator. Use Wild Rider Red to layer the red areas of the tank. Apply this paint evenly, covering the majority of the vehicle’s surface. This step gives your model a vibrant red foundation. Changing protocols either requires them to have a nearby Datasmith, roll a 2+, and then change in the next battle round, or alternatively you can use Binharic Override or the Cybernetica Cohort relic to change instead. Raiment of the Technomartyr: 6+ FNP for the bearer, and units within 6” that roll a 6 in Overwatch generate another shot. It’s a lot less exciting than it looks when you realise that it’s an extra shot and not an extra hit, but if you don’t have any particular use for another relic, you might as well use this.

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That’s not too shabby! What’s good about these numbers is also their consistency, as a lot of high-powered anti tank weaponry suffer from that most infuriating of attributes – randomness. The Ferrumite Cannon has neither a random number of shots (D3, 1D6, 2D3 etc…), nor random damage (D6 that always finds a way to roll a 1 when it counts), which means it’s likely to deliver consistent results when you are shooting with it. Consistency is very important when assessing where and how to use your larger, more powerful weaponry as it becomes more meaningful to get an accurate idea of how much damage your choice is going to count for – variance is the enemy in these situations. The downside is that putting 1.5 Wounds on a Knight isn’t particularly enticing, until you remember that it’s about twice as effective as a single lascannon shot, but with more consistent results. The Disintegrator comes with a really solid assortment of weapons. 3 Cognis Heavy Stubbers allow for good anti-horde output and it can chew through light infantry. The Disruptor Missile Launcher is a super versatile weapon. In a pinch, it can work to take down enemy armor and is really good vs light vehicles. With D3 damage it’s also a decent anti-MEQ weapons, and thanks to Blast it’s also good at taking on a horde. The real star however is the Belleros Energy Cannon, which is pretty much the universal choice over the Ferrumite Cannon. With heavy 3d3 and Blast it can put out a lot of shots. At S5 AP -1 and D2 this weapon is amazing a killing MEQ or even light vehicles. Best of all it doesn’t need LoS, so it’s hard to hide from and can snipe out lone characters. Overall the tank can put out up to 27 shots a turn, at a current 145 Pts that nearly 1 shot for every 5 pts, and 15 of those can kill MEQ. This is a highly efficient gun platform. A Sample List Want to play robots who aren’t dumb space robots that lost to elves? Want to play a killer gunline that isn’t anime fish? Are you into body horror that isn’t torture porn or supernatural? Are you into SCIENCE? Then Adeptus Mechanicus is the faction for you. For added depth and dimension, shade the red areas with Carroburg Crimson. Apply this shade selectively, allowing it to settle into the recesses and panel lines. This will create shadows and enhance the overall appearance of the red armor. Some weapons have ‘Blast’ listed in their profile’s abilities. These are referred to as Blast weapons. In addition to the normal rules, the following rules apply to Blast weapons:

Divine Chorus: Once per battle, before rolling or choosing, choose a Canticle that has already been used. Can be helpful if you’ve already burned Shroudpsalm and super need it this turn.Ranger Alpha: Galvanic Rifle (0), Host of the Intermediary, Warlord Trait (Codex 1): Multitasking Cortex

Relic: The Red Axe: one of several melee weapons meant to be put on a Dominus. This one is +1S -5AP 2D. Yawn. Warlord Trait: Static Psalm-code: Add 3” to your auras. Cawl’s trait. Extremely Cawl and good with his giant oval base. The 9” bubble allows excellent maneuverability on the table when trying to shoot around terrain or stretch out units to screen. Units that disembark from a TRANSPORT model that made a Normal move this phase count as having made a Normal move themselves; they cannot move further during this phase. Such a unit also cannot declare a charge in the same turn, but can otherwise act normally in the remainder of the turn.

Primaris Repulsor Executioner

Now we’re on to the bread and butter of what we want this tank for: Its effectiveness against armoured targets. For the purposes of this review I’ll use these targets for our testing: