Let's start with our first troop choice in the book, the skitarii vanguard. For their points and for what they do, they're great! With a little bit of synergy they can be a huge thorn in the side to your opponent. "How can that be?" you may ask. Simple, its synergy, with these bad boys on the field you get a lot of choices with what you can do with them. Though they are a close-mid range unit, that's perfectly fine. Their armour is average (4+) and their stats are average save for their ballistic skill (4), FNP, relentless and move through cover, they really have the potential to pack a punch. They have the special rule called rad poisoning, lowering the toughness of whichever enemy unit they are in combat with by 1, and being that their main guns are mid range with 3 shots that have rad poisoning, which, when you roll to wound and get a 6, you deal another wound to your opponent, makes them very likely to wipe out most infantry units reliably.
Lets take a look at our other troop choice, our longer range skitarii rangers. Again an average stat line save for the extra ballistic skill and 4+ save, along with all of the fixings that the vanguard got (FNP etc), they're essentially the long range counterpart to the vanguard. They do not have the rad saturation or poisoning, but do have a 30 inch range and precision shots on all models with the galvanic rifles, compared to the much lower range of the vanguard. To me the Rangers feel like a support unit, staying back and giving support fire to the vanguards.
Up next are our elites choices. The sicarian ruststalkers are a great combat oriented elite choice. With FNP and FC with an extra 3 inches on their movement. With their weapons starting at Ap5 and strength 4, where one of their attacks are with fleshbane and on 6's automatically wound on the to wound roll, where these attacks are resolved at Ap2 for the first turn. Their attacks then become Ap2 for every subsequent round of combat. This makes these combat oriented elites choices phenomenal for what they do and their points cost at a modest 160 points for a base unit.
Our next elites choice are the sicarian infiltrators. A great synergy unit with the neurostatic aura subtracting 1 from weapon skill, ballistic skill, initiative and leadership, which can be used to HUGE advantage on the battlefield. Yes, it is only within 6 inches of this unit, but, like the vanguard, this ability can be used to a great advantage. Not to mention each infiltrator carries with it a power sword, and a stub carbine, giving them 3 shots each at strength 4 is nothing to sneeze at, along with the ability to move 3 inches further with infiltrate and stealth, these guys are mobile.
Next up is the one fast attack choice for our skitarii, the Sydonian Dragoon. A walker standing at armour 11 all round, with 2 HP, its actually fairly average for a walker, though it does have the extra 3 inches with dunestrider to move with, and with a 5+ cover at all times, it seems a little more survivable than most. This model, however, is really good on the charge, and I mean really good. at +3 strength on the charge, and doubling its initiative to 6 on the charge I'd say this guy should see a lot of combat, especially when used with the ruststalkers.
On to heavy support. Our first heavy support is the ironstrider ballistarii. This is essentially a mobile weapons platform that happens to be a walker. As durable as our last walker, but without the cover, this guy has precision shots and the armament to use it. The ballistarii is kitted out with the cognis autocannon, which can be replaced with the cognis lascannon. What cognis does is that it allows you to shoot snap shots at BS 2 instead of 1. This guy is ranged support, and I'm not really sure he's the best that the skitarii have to offer when compared next to their next heavy support.
The Onager Dunecrawler. In my humble opinion, is easily the best bang for your buck in this book. Point for point easily the best heavy support choice, not only due to its huge customization options, but also for its special rules. It gets a 6+ invuln save base, and for each other dunecrawler in the unit it adds 1 to the save, giving it at best a 4+. With its armour on front and sides 1 better than our other walker options, and with the ability to never be slowed by difficult terrain and auto pass Dangerous terrain tests this guy has staying power, and the ability to move into pesky areas too, giving it great survivability. I think my favourite weapon for this guy is the Icarus array where it gives it 3 weapons, with skyfire. The eardication beamer and the phosphor blaster are great as well, especially if you don't have all that much in the air, but then you can always put one loadout on each crawler in the unit and have a very versatile unit.
I found the artwork, the background and stories in the book to be really inspirational as far as trying to find colour schemes and pieces of information to start a background for your own army with.
Overall I found this book to be great, but I also feel that the army itself is more of an ally type army, and with the new cult mechanicus book thats come out I think that's just what I'll do.
Please leave all of your comments and criticisms below, this was my first codex review so please let
me know what it is that I can work on.
Also in other mildly related/unrelated Idon'tknowness I'll be joining the ViralOutbreakGaming crew soon, and I'll be posting this review on their website as well. If you want to see something in particular, a tutorial, battle reports, more reviews and all the like, just gimme a shout and I'll see what I can do and check out Viraloutbreakgaming.com.
Thanks, and have fun.
Skitarii, Codex: Skitarii, Onager Dunecrawler, Skitarii Vanguard, Skitarii Rangers, Sicarian Ruststalkers, Sicarian Infiltrators, Sydonian dragoon, and Ironstrider Ballistarii are all trademarks of Games-Workshop.
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