How to Play Adeptus Mechanicus in Warhammer 40,000 11th Edition

The structural change is Detachment Points. In 10th edition you chose one detachment; in 11th you get a DP budget — roughly 2 DP at 1,000 points and 3 DP at 2,000 points — and spend it on detachments that each cost 1 to 3 DP, so you can now combine detachments.

For AdMech that means the seven returning codex detachments were joined by three brand-new 1-DP detachments: Cohort Acquisitus, Lords of the Forge and Luminen Auto-choir. Ten are legal in total.

The Faction Pack does three other things worth knowing. It restates the Doctrina Imperatives army rule in full, so the current wording is first-party rather than inherited. It amends three codex detachments in its Rules Updates section: Cohort Cybernetica's rule, the Rad-Zone Corps bombardment table, and Skitarii Hunter Cohort's rule plus its Veiled Hunter enhancement. And it adds four new datasheets — Thulia Ghuld, Hastarii Exterminators, Hastarii Fusiliers and the Servitor Battleclade.

One datasheet change matters more than its size suggests: the Skitarii Marshal, Cybernetica Datasmith and Technoarcheologist all lost 'Leader' and gained 'Support'. A Marshal can now be attached to a unit that already has a Leader, which is why so many 11th-edition AdMech lists stack two characters on the same brick.

AdMech units share the Doctrina Imperatives, two opposed stances that can be active for a unit. Faction Pack v1.2 restates both.

Protector Imperative gives that unit's ranged weapons Heavy, improves their Ballistic Skill by 1, and — if the unit is Battleline and/or within 6\" of a friendly AdMech Battleline unit — subtracts 1 from the Hit roll of melee attacks targeting it.

Conqueror Imperative gives that unit's ranged weapons Assault, improves melee Weapon Skill by 1, and — under the same Battleline condition — improves that attack's Armour Penetration by 1.

Read the third clause of each carefully, because it is the whole shape of the faction. The best part of both imperatives only fires when the unit is Battleline itself or standing near Battleline, so Skitarii Rangers and Vanguard are not filler, they are infrastructure. A gun platform parked out of Battleline range is running at reduced output.

The other thing to know is that several enhancements and stratagems turn both imperatives on for one unit at the same time: Omnicogitator and Cognitive Reinforcement among the enhancements, Cantic Thrallnet and Transcendent Cogitation among the stratagems. Anything that stacks both is worth a hard look, and Eradication Cohort's whole detachment rule is built on top of that idea.

Your DP budget scales with game size: about 2 DP at 1,000 points and 3 DP at 2,000 points. Costs:

• 3-DP detachments (Eradication Cohort, Haloscreed Battle Clade) fill your whole 2,000-point budget on their own, so they run solo.
• 2-DP detachments (Cohort Cybernetica, Data-Psalm Conclave, Explorator Maniple, Rad-Zone Corps, Skitarii Hunter Cohort) leave 1 DP spare for a support.
• 1-DP detachments (Cohort Acquisitus, Lords of the Forge, Luminen Auto-choir) are the glue.

Those DP values are not printed in the Faction Pack, but they are published officially in the Munitorum Field Manual, and Wahapedia and Wargamer independently agree on all ten. None of them is contested. Points updates move them, so confirm in the app before you build.

There is exactly one pairing restriction. AdMech have a single Unique Tag, DATA-PSALM, carried by Data-Psalm Conclave and Luminen Auto-choir. No two detachments may share a tag, so those two can never be fielded together. Every other combination that fits the budget is legal.

Ten detachments are legal. By role, with DP costs:

• Haloscreed Battle Clade (3 DP) — the flexible generalist; each Command phase you grant a few units a shared Override ability. Start here.
• Eradication Cohort (3 DP) — an all-out Skitarii aggression package built on the Doctrina re-rolls.
• Cohort Cybernetica (2 DP) — Kastelan Robots and vehicles; every stratagem fires in your Command phase.
• Data-Psalm Conclave (2 DP) — Cult Mechanicus, with one Benediction chosen for the whole battle. Carries DATA-PSALM.
• Explorator Maniple (2 DP) — everything keys off one nominated Acquisition objective marker.
• Rad-Zone Corps (2 DP) — attrition and area denial; a bombardment that grinds the enemy deployment zone all game.
• Skitarii Hunter Cohort (2 DP) — Stealth plus a deep redeploy and withdraw toolkit.
• Cohort Acquisitus (1 DP, new) — recon and detection through the Recon Augury keyword.
• Lords of the Forge (1 DP, new) — every Tech-Priest gets a 4+ invulnerable save and Feel No Pain 5+.
• Luminen Auto-choir (1 DP, new) — Electro-Priest support. Carries DATA-PSALM.

If you only remember one line from this section: Lords of the Forge is the reason the 3-DP detachments have a hard sell. A single point turning every Tech-Priest in your army into a 4+ invulnerable, Feel No Pain 5+ model is a very large amount of durability for the price, and the pack's own review consensus is that a 2 + 1 split around it is the default shape of an 11th-edition AdMech list.

Pick a core from your collection and playstyle:

• All-comers / unsure → Haloscreed Battle Clade (3 DP). Skitarii melee and firefights → Eradication Cohort (3 DP). Both fill the budget and run alone.
• Kastelan Robots and vehicles → Cohort Cybernetica. Electro-Priests and Kataphrons → Data-Psalm Conclave. Objective-anchored gunline → Explorator Maniple. Grinding attrition → Rad-Zone Corps. Skitarii infantry with tricks → Skitarii Hunter Cohort. All are 2 DP and leave a point spare.

If your core is a 2-DP detachment, spend the leftover DP on a 1-DP support:

• Lords of the Forge to make every Tech-Priest genuinely hard to remove, and to give a Command-phase-locked core something to spend command points on in other phases.
• Cohort Acquisitus to add recon, detection and a withdraw trick to a list that has none.
• Luminen Auto-choir if you actually field Electro-Priests — but note it cannot pair with Data-Psalm Conclave, since both carry DATA-PSALM.

A concrete 2,000-point example: Cohort Cybernetica (2 DP) + Lords of the Forge (1 DP). Cybernetica's six stratagems all trigger in your Command phase, which leaves the rest of your turn with nothing to spend on; Lords fills exactly that gap while hardening the Datasmith and Tech-Priests holding the list together.

Two habits carry AdMech games. First, respect the Battleline clause. The strongest half of each Doctrina Imperative only applies when the unit is Battleline or within 6\" of a friendly AdMech Battleline unit. That turns cheap Skitarii Rangers and Vanguard blocks into a positioning obligation, not an afterthought: move them so your Kataphrons, Robots and Dunecrawlers are always inside that bubble.

Second, watch which phase your stratagems live in. This is unusually lopsided for AdMech. Cohort Cybernetica's entire suite fires in your Command phase, so a mono-Cybernetica list can find itself with command points and nothing to do with them in the Shooting or Fight phases. Rad-Zone Corps and Skitarii Hunter Cohort have two-command-point stratagems that want banking for a specific moment. A 2 + 1 split quietly fixes this, because you draw on both detachments' stratagems.

And since the Skitarii Marshal is now a Support character, plan your characters as pairs: a Marshal carrying a detachment enhancement can share a unit with a Tech-Priest Dominus or Manipulus that already leads it.

If you are new or returning, build a Haloscreed Battle Clade list first. It is the most forgiving detachment, it works with almost any AdMech collection, and its Command-phase Override choice teaches you the rhythm of the army without asking you to commit to Robots, priests or a single objective marker.

Once you are comfortable, try a 2 + 1 DP split. The cleanest one to learn on is a 2-DP core plus Lords of the Forge, because it makes your characters durable enough to survive the mistakes you are still making.

Because AdMech are still on a faction pack rather than a full 11th-edition codex, expect a future codex to re-tune this detachment lineup and its points. Until then, everything here reflects the current, live rules.