Looks interesting. Curious that you are taking a spacecraft. I look forward to seeing how the secutors and new robots perform. (it's the colossus BTW )

_________________
-Vaaish

I felt I needed something to threaten WEs, in the absence of the usual MW artillery.



OK, ok. <jedi handwave> There is a Castellan robot too...

Battle Report (vs Biel-Tan Eldar, they're popular around here...) here:

http://sdahl.net/~sdahl/whepic/20120402/

Some thoughts and observations:

Overall, the list felt right - I really struggled to get across the center line, but the Mechanicus won through on sheer dogged refusal to lay down and die, when the Eldar pummeled them on hard first strikes but melted in protracted fight.

The AML Minorus is OK against soft-skinned Eldar, not so great when they hide inside their RA skimmers... I missed the MW, but saved 100 points, so that's probably all right.

The Gothic did great, fortunately there were good targets for it.

The Robots rule worked OK at best - They felt more resilient with their greater blast marker tolerance, but the 3+ activation is really unpleasant - they felt more like malfunctioning drones than implacable robots, but that's probably just my activation luck. I would really really like an option to get them back to 2+ initiative, for instance by attaching a Tech-Priest to them to guide them in the field.

Sagitarii didn't really get a chance to do anything - they moved up and were engaged immediately, almost wiping them out.

The Secutor was sniped early, but it seems like it is definitely worth its exorbitant cost. I'll take it again, certainly (especially now that I actually built a model for them!)

I think your site might be down, I haven't been able to connect to it since you posted.

Robots I'm curious about. Same for the secutor. Robots... the 3+ isn't actually part of the robots rule. I've that in place since we added the robots themselves. It does sound like the rule itself is working. I'll need to do more testing, but it might end up as an unmodified 3+ to activate.

The purpose behind the 3+ is to show that the robots are following pre-programmed instructions. When you activate them it represents the clever programming allowing them to function optimally, but when you fail to activate it's the robot following its instructions even though the action is "stupid"

_________________
-Vaaish

ISP trouble. It should work now?



The rule works well enough to show why robots aren't deployed as combat troops by anyone except fanatic machine worshippers

1) I think the penalty to activate should be part of the Robots rule. That makes the Robots portable to other lists, by just copy/pasting the special rule along. The list of different Initiatives in the header are prone to be overlooked (I know I had, until this version of the list).

2) "Unmodified 3+ to activate" might work, but it still means that moving robots into a different position is a distinctly chancy affair. "Take Hill 17" is not complex programming, but at 3+ (and at walking pace) it is highly likely that a Castellan won't actually make it...

I strongly urge you to reconsider the field Tech-priest upgrade, and altering the rule to (eg):

I think this captures the feel of the robots as in your rule, as long as there is no tech-priest along (or if the tech-priest has fallen) - so in any list that doesn't have the tech-priests upgrade, they work exactly as now. For an Ad Mech army that relies on robots to do any serious amount of offensive fighting, there is the option to add field Magi to direct them at combat efficiency levels comparable to regular troops.

So as an exercise I've put together a list that I would probably play with if I got a game with this list in the near future. (In other words I haven't played with, but this is my current theory-hammer list)

1 Skitarii Demi-Century + Upgrade Priest to Tech Lord
2 Ordinartis Minoris + 3x Las Burners
3 Ordinartis Minoris + 3x Laser Blasters
4 Sagitarii + Rapier (1)
5 Crusader Maniple
6 Crusader Maniple
7 Crusader Maniple
8 Warhound
9 Warhound
10 Warhound
11 Thunderbolts

Plan here would be to push forward with the Minoris to grab TnH whilst battering anything that came towards me. Hounds would go hunting on one flank. Robots would probably be set up on overwatch and left as they were with the 3+ initiative I would not be risking them that much and they are primarily in the list to help build up activations.