Even more new stuff from the upcoming Eye of Terror campaign book today, this time a trio of new datasheets come for the Adeptus Mechanicus - a new named character Thulia Ghuld and two options for building Hastarii - anti-infantry Exterminators or Vehicle-hunting Fusiliers. Curie is here to go over what they mean for the scions of Mars. You can find our coverage of the last three units released here.

The big caveat here is that we don't currently have points costs for any of these, which absolutely blunts the ability to predict how good any of this is. That said, we'll offer some potential costs and talk about what different price points might mean for each unit.

Thulia Ghuld

Thulia comes in with a Cawl-level stat-line to match her impressive model at Toughness 8 with 10 Wounds protected by a 2+ Armour Save and a 4+ Invulnerable Save. She moves 8”, and are equipped with a ranged Jericho-class conversion resonator backed up by the Rod of the forge omnissian axe. Both weapons have two options - the ranged variant having titanic impact which grants it [DEVASTATING WOUNDS] for the 2 shots at 12/3/d6+2 with 24” range while the shockwave mode has [BLAST] and [SUSTAINED HITS 1] for d6+2 shots reaching 24” at 6/2/1. Fairly handy at popping light vehicles as well as clearing chaff out of the way for her Skitarii minions. In melee she has a strike giving 6 attacks at 10/2/3 or sweep with 12 attacks at 6/1/1. Everything hits on 2’s base as she is an epic hero of the Mechanicum.

As for abilities, she gains Lone Operative within 3” of any Adeptus Mechanicus units, the same as Cawl does. In addition, she's been given Cawl’s ability to go through walls rather than be hidden in the balance dataslate. As for utility abilities, similarly to Cawl she has three abilities to choose from in your Command Phase. She is focused on boosting Skitarii models or themselves, giving one of these within 6” of her one of the following:

Eligibility to Shoot and Charge in a turn in which they advanced.
Eligibility to Shoot and Charge in a turn in which they fell back.
Benefit of both Doctrinas for that unit.

Thulia is a rather interesting datasheet - rather than buffing your entire army she buffs single pieces with some very useful abilities. Depending on her cost she may see some play, but she definitely won’t replace Cawl’s full re-rolls anytime soon. She is slightly better in melee than Cawl, but worse when you compare Cawl’s melta to Thulia’s titanic impact mode.

TheChirurgeon: For reference, Cawl clocks in at 210 points. Which is fair for something that buffs your entire army. Less broad buffs typically merit a lower cost, so we might expect Thule to come in lower.

Hastarii Exterminators

Hastarii are a new slower, but more durable, infantry unit template for the Adeptus Mechanicus - they Move 5”, are Toughness 4, have 2 Wounds supported by a 3+ Armour Save and a 5+ Invulnerable Save. As they are not Battleline they only have 1 OC, and come in fixed unit sizes of 5 models. For the Exterminators, each one is equipped with a Hastarii arc blaster, and an Eradication Caster. They are also equipped with close combat weapons with the Alpha getting a power weapon. These are both worthless, with 1 attack at 4/0/1 or 2 attacks at 5/2/1. Maybe they’d punch their way out of a paper bag, but that’s not why you’re taking them - they’re gun platforms complemented by their datasheet ability Broad-spectrum Targeting Augurs which gives them [Sustained Hits 1] against all non-monster/vehicle units.

Their arc blasters are 1 attack at 6/1/2 with Anti-vehicle 4+ and Devastating Wounds - an odd choice since this datasheet is clearly intended to hunt infantry, especially with their Eradication casters having two modes - dissipated giving 2 shots at 5/1/2 Anti-infantry 4+ at 30” or the focused giving 2 shots at 5/2/2 Anti-infantry 4+ at 15”. They hit on 4’s base in melee and at ranged, and can be buffed by Doctrinas, either in AP or ballistic skill depending on what’s needed. The Anti-infantry guns are particularly interesting hopping out of a dunerider with full re-rolls to wound against most any infantry unit.

That said, it’s not clear that this particular unit solves any problem the Adeptus Mechanicus had leading up to this in clearing infantry. Perhaps if they’re cheap enough they’ll serve a role, but they’d have to be quite cheap - sub 100 points - to make the cut.

Hastarii Fusiliers

Next we have the Fusiliers that are your close-range big game hunters, powered up by their Monocular Targeting Helms giving them [Ignores Cover] against Monster or Vehicle units. This helps out their Neutron fusils that pack a punch at 24” with 1 shot each at 12/3/d6+1 - the perfect profile for decimating pretty much any tough platform. Coupled with this is a 2 shot Hastarii phosphor blaster that has 2 shots at 5/0/1 with only 18” range. Another odd choice - it feels like the Exterminators should have been given this weapon and the Fusiliers given the Eradication Caster. Same as the Exterminators, the Fusiliers have token melee weapons, nothing to really speak of but at least they might kill a gretchen?

Overall, the Fusiliers are interesting - they fill a gap in Adeptus Mechanicus lists in light infantry that can clear vehicles. The army currently leans heavily on Ironstrider Ballistarii backed up by Cawl’s full re-rolls to do damage. Depending on points these could replace them as they can hide in duneriders, even benefit from shoot and scoot abilities such as the Battle-sphere uplink from Skitarii Hunter Cohort. Amusingly, they are very good weapons to shoot out of the Dunerider when making use of its Firing Deck 2 ability.

Imperial Knights

Knight Destrier

Norman: Imperial Knights get a whole brand new frame. Bellatus Knights (the name for the new knight classification) sit much where you’d expect as something that lives between an Armiger and Questoris frame. They have a 12” move, are T10, the same save profile as everyone else, 18 wounds, and 8 OC. A lot of this is what you’d expect, but keeping the full 12” move is great along with some nice OC.

Rules wise, you get three abilities to play with; Ram Jets give you an extra D3” when you make a Normal or Advance Move. Honestly this should’ve just been a flat 14” move on this guy but what can you do. If you equip it with two melee weapons, you get an extra two attacks thanks to Thundercharge, which is great for your strikes and nice for your sweeps. Lastly, Saturation Fire lets you ignore cover for units on objectives. This is pretty mediocre as we’ve seen the same rule on Chaos Brigands and those things have been dead ever since.

Curie: I actually like this quite a bit - it keeps their AP-1 relevant into things on objectives while giving the opponent some play around it. Unless you’re on a table with fully exposed objectives…

Norman: For weapons, you get two guns and an option to replace them with two different melee weapons. The Chastiser Gatling Cannon is a mini Avenger, losing 6 shots, a pip of AP, and 12” of range in exchange for Assault. This is still a great profile for sweeping up chaff and will be a workhorse whenever you can give it proper Ignores Cover. The Frag Bombard meanwhile is a souped up Deathwatch Frag Cannon, sitting at D6+3 shots at S7 AP-1 D2 with rapid fire D6+3 Assault and Blast. This pairs nicely with the Chastiser, but if you’re picking one or the other, the Chastiser wins out in my book. Lastly there's a stubber on this guy which is the same as all your other stubbers but it also has Assault.

For melee weapons we have the Bellatus Reaper Chainsword which gets 5 attacks at S12 AP-3 D D3+3 or a sweep with 10 attacks at S8 AP-2 D2. This is a solid workhorse profile that's solid in a lot of the situations this knight is gonna find itself in. Then we have the Thundershock Spear which predictably gets Lance on both profiles with the strike having 4 attacks at S12 AP-3 D D3+3 and a sweep of 8 attacks at S6 AP-3 D2. This one’s more of a toss up. I think I like the Spear more even with the less attacks because lance all the time seems great, but if you think you’re gonna be in sustained combat the chainsword is the way to go.

Curie: The double-melee Destrier is going to be a force to be reckoned with - 7A at 12/3/d3+3 is a solid profile into pretty much everything in the game, especially when coupled with a 12+d3” Move characteristic. These things will fly across the table in Questoris Companions as well. Being characters they can take enhancements, as thankfully the enhancements in all Imperial Knights detachments simply specify an Imperial Knights model, not the class of chassis. Similarly there’s no restrictions on stratagem usage as they also target Imperial Knights Titanic model when restricting to a big knight.

TheChirurgeon: The price for these is going to be super critical. These are close enough in size and toughness to big knights that if these are cheap enough for you to run three with three bigs I think it'll upend the game. We already saw last year that six bigs was a major breaking point for Chaos Knights and while these are a bit smaller I worry that they aren't small enough - the problem isn't so much that any individual knight can't be dealth with but rather that at six T11 bodies you hit a critical mass that's hard to overcome, even for armies which can handle a knight.

Also that Ram Jets rule is dumb - just give them 14" movement. What are we doing here.

Final Thoughts

We'll have more on these units when we write our full preview of the Eye of Terror release so stay tuned for that. There will certainly be more to say when we have points for these unit as well as any new Detachments for Imperial Knights and Adeptus Mechanicus released in the book. Check back then.

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