Artwork Credit: https://www.artstation.com/brushray

When the Mechanicum book first dropped in Horus Heresy 2.0, it was recieved by many (including this blog) as a bit of a shit show. Comparatively, there were a huge amount of changes, but not many in a positive light. For instance, there’s a disturbing lack of Brutal across the army. There’s been wide ranging and incredibly heavy handed nerfs across the book for units that needed an adjustment (Vulturax) and those that really didn’t (Ursurax, Adsecularis Tech Thralls). There are rules that either don’t make sense or are still missing – even after an FAQ, and general loss of AP 2 in the Automata which when paired with the Weapon Skill Chart means that there is a palpable sense of fear when Astartes get into melee with them – inexplicably.

It’s interesting then that in the last 12 months I’ve noticed the emergence of a set of phrases from an ever clearer-defining group of player types in Horus Heresy, and those phrases are based around:

“Myrmidons and Thanatars are OP and need to be nerfed” or “Myrmidons and Thanatars are the mark of a WAAC player”

Legiones Astartes, Cake and Eat it Player Type

The Background

Firstly, let us look at why those units of all of the units in the book are called out, as it is incredibly important to ensure we think critically about these statements.

Basis	Consideration
Myrmidon Secutors are mostly taken in armies because they’re OP	Myrmidon Secutors are mostly taken in Mechanicum armies because they have something that virtually the entirety of the rest of the book doesn’t: potential to effectively stand up to Astartes meta choices, particularly Terminators and Dreadnoughts. This boils down to resilience, flexiblity and ranged weapons. For instance, Automata can put up a reasonable fight at range against these meta choices, but can’t natively react and require quite a lot of “table preparation and sequencing” to get them to work in this manner – whereas Myrmidons don’t. So here you have a unit of T5, 4W, Sv 3+, 5++ models that might actually not just die without retort, and don’t necessarily require additional points cost in HQ units to get the best of them. They’re not efficient per se, but they’re probably one of the few units in the book that’s about at the level expected of a 2.0 unit and that is why they’re taken.
Myrmidon Secutors are spammed with Plasma or Graviton weapons because they’re broken and far too cheap.	It’s interesting because the unit costs 150 points base for 3 models. That’s 12 Wounds with a 3+ Sv. You’re paying +10 points for a Phased Plasma Fusil, which is Heavy 3, 24″, S6, AP3, Breaching (4+) Gets Hot! So, if you’re replacing both weapons on each of those models in the base unit, that’s suddenly 230 points for a minimum sized squad of 3. If you want to ensure they get across the table without dying to overwhelming firepower it’s 135 points for a Triaros, taking us to 365 points. If you want to add in some extra firepower and bodies, Five is 360 points, pre-transport, or 495 points with one. Plasma is taken wholesale because you’re rolling 30 dice so there’s a fair chance of causing some carnage. What isn’t often noted is that it’s around 4-5 results of a 1 – also know as Gets Hot! and then you have that self-wounding combination of an AP3 weapon, and an Sv 3+ on the Myrmidons taking you directly to that 5++ invulnerable. The result is, you’re losing wounds just for shooting at a target, before any reactions are played such as Return Fire. That plasma fire will definitely hurt the recipient unit, but it’s far from an OP-style of “I’m going to kill a unit with literally no concerns” approach that so plagues Astartes units like Scorpius, Lascannon Heavy Support Squads or Contemptors. As for Graviton, well that is purely an anti-Contemptor meta choice. This is due to the fact that Mechanicum have very little to stop one Contemptor reliably at range or in melee, let alone the average meta choice of 2-3 per 3,000 point army. They’re not particularly good against Infantry and again suffer with range too. In melee, Mymridons are baseline-mechanicum, i.e. pretty rubbish – despite the fact they have huge axes and seem designed to be melee-focused (but then again this is 2.0, where Night Lords are suddenly a shooty army?). In short, Phased Plasma Fusils are good, but they aren’t a fire and forget weapon. Every model they’re mounted on will inevitably lose wounds as they fire them and over the game you’re likely to lose a few models. 10 points each for always on AP3 and Gets Hot! is a nice balance, when you consider that Sv 3+ on the Myrmidons and Thallax, in addition to what they’re really being taken to face off against. Sure you have a 5++ on the Myrmidons, but that isn’t going to save them from themselves over a game, and certainly doesn’t when combined with the firepower and melee capability Astartes leverage against them.
They must be OP because you always see them.	I am right, therefore you are wrong is a syllogism. They’re OP because you always see them is similarly a syllogism. In actual fact, when you dig into it, there’s so little of comparative value in the Mechanicum book, that those few choices that actually do make comparative sense, combined with High Orders of Techno Arcana to make them “better” or enable better use of them, naturally means you’ll see more of them. Why would someone take a large unit of Adsecularis Tech Thralls to counter an established Dreadnought, Lascannon Heavy Support Squad and Terminator meta when they offer little to no value against those targets? It’s not about efficiency. We aren’t even looking that deep – it’s about a book that frankly is still in draft, with most of it’s units internally unbalanced, externally in a poor condition and generally relying on those units that are in a more finished (at the standard of 2.0) condition to attempt to not auto-lose every game. Lets not forget, that you’re still not getting Line on Myrmidon Secutors in Myrmidax unless they’re wholly within 6″ – and 6″ isn’t that big. So you’ve got quite an expensive unit, normally being used as a crutch against the meta Astartes choices in an army, relying on another 270 point model to gain Line and around 200 point model to take a High Orders of Techno Arcana to do any of that in the first place. And then they start wounding/killing themselves.

So it’s safe to say that Myrmidons are taken, not because they’re OP, but because they have potential to deal with the prolific meta of the Astartes, whilst the rest of the book offers very little in this regard.

Why do you keep talking about Meta?

“Heresy isn’t competitive by nature”. That’s been a phrase that normally leads to the next one of: “Heresy is narrative driven”. But that isn’t true, is it. In Horus Heresy 1.0, the books had quite of lot of options that were in the “acceptably ruled” bracket and above, and very little in the “dogshit” category, this was especially the case in the Mechanicum 1.0 book. In 2.0, the goal posts have changed. The changes to Weapon Skill mean that WS4 and WS5 have a sizeable gulf in between them. The anti-tank capability has been not only buffed with sundering Lascannons, but the removal of Armoured Ceramite has made the the game a non-permissive environment for tanks full stop.

What we are seeing in response to this changed nature is an emergence of a meta, in which the following are the core of most Astartes armies:

• Dreadnoughts, normally Contemptors; because they are truly OP due to being undercosted for their outputs.

• Lascannon Heavy Support Squads; they might be squishy, and unable to move and shoot, but they’re cheap and able to annihalate most things in the game in a round of shooting. Or are so scary to players that they’re not shooting at the Contemptors making their way up the table.

• Recon Marines; because not only are they Pinning, but any way of debuffing Leadership with pinpoint shooting is highly valued.

• Legion Scorpius; because not moving and dropping a barrage of ridiculously good warheads that Rend is too good to miss out on.

• Terminators (Legion Specific); becaues they have greater WS, great survivability with 2W, a decent invuln (Cataphractii, or Shielded Cataphractii) and access to horrifically good weapons.

If you haven’t seen these in a list, or at least a combination of these in a list, then you’re incredibly lucky. However, even stoically narrative groups have been penetrated by the meta so deeply that people feel they have to take these choices to ensure they don’t get rolled by another Astartes army. Or you see people making excuses as to why those choices are “narrative”, when they really know it isn’t (tip: your eyes never lie).

It’s simple – since 2.0 dropped we’ve all been kidding ourselves – Horus Heresy is virtually dead, the old narrative format anyway – we are now very much competitive in culture. Look at any set of army lists from the last year of narrative events to spell it out clearly, and Warhammer World events for sickening lists with Warhounds, Contemptors, Scorpius and Snipers across many lists.

It’s partly down to the fact that the clearly broken, or close to broken Astartes stuff needs to be doubled down upon by other clearly broken, or close to broken stuff to not have a one-way game, where you just remove models for 5 turns, every game. There’s little of the old “off piste” lists where someone brings something truly magical and fun to play against. Instead we see generic lists of Snipers, Terminators, Scorpius pairs and lots of Contemptors supporting Tactical Squads. You might as well just remove the Legions wholesale from the game and not bother painting the models. People seem to think that popping a unit or two in that isn’t OP makes the rest of the meta-list better or that somehow makes playing against it palettable.

It’s partly down to the fact that there seem to be more people looking for exploits or ways to gain an advantage through interpretation these days. From Death Guard being able to walk out of combat (they can’t), through to Iron Warriors getting +1 Strength when inadvertently hitting a unit that doesn’t have a keyword too (they don’t) and everything in between, this is an edition of “Ackshually” and “Well I interpret X as Y because it benefits me immensely and makes the game miserable for you”.

We have hobbiess to have fun, not make things miserable for your opposite number. Oh, and before anyone says “winning is fun for me, losing isn’t”; if you think that’s any different to anyone else, then you’re an actual idiot. It’s just that there’s more to life than winning every game and making it a truly miserable affair to face you because your ego can’t tolerate a loss every now and again.

Finally it’s down to the fact that Games Workshop can’t internally and externally balance books – even when only looking at 4 main factions (Loyalist, Traitors, Mechanicum and Imperial), which explains why 40K is so terrible for balance. The fact that Mechanicum dropped with several serious rule errors, or rules outright missing and the fact that Games Workshop prioritised answering whether Twin-Linked meant Twin-Linked over more serious issues means that it still more or less resembles one of the early leaked Playtest books than a finished 2.0 book, rules wise.

Cultural Change Impact

You want to know why you see so many Myrmidons for Mechanicum armies? It’s because the old game is dead and the new game is full of idiots who will whinge about the one or two good Mechanicum units, whilst fielding meta armies that force the Mechanicum players to not run anything else because their book is so shit in the first place. In other words, those whinging about Myrmidons, Thanatars and even the comparatively poor Castellax in 2.0 want their cake and to eat it too.

Paraphrasing from very real statements made online and in person:

“Heresy isn’t about Mechanicum, or Militia, it’s just about the Legions.”

“You can’t play with your good stuff because I think they’re broken, but I can play with all of my very good stuff because I’ve attached a flimsy and transparent narrative story as to why a Legion would do XYZ, so either accept that or don’t play”.

“Mechanicum should be shit.”

Not only is the first statement incredibly wrong, because the Mechanicum underpin the entire capability of the Great crusade and subsequent Heresy in terms of Martial and Materiale prowess, but the Militia and Army are also seen in swathes throughout the books too.

The second statement is paraphrased heavily, but it revolved around a piece of lore written by a player as to why they were running meta only choices for a game and in what would be considered spammable amounts. I can write that I have a 12″ penis and that my name is Elon Musk, but that doesn’t make it so, or make it palettable to face in real life.

The third statement is ridiculousness embodied. Lets not forget that units like the Leviathan was tendered as a direct response to the threat of Mechanicum Heavy Automata.. You know, the ones that don’t have AP 2 or Brutal. Mechanicum were at the technological forefront in the Heresy, they should be on par with Astartes due to esoteric technological reasons, if not martial ones. It’s a part of the reason that Horus wanted Kelbor Hal to swing Mars to his side so early on in the Heresy.

It’s not gatekeeping or elitist to protect a narrative style of play you love and were playing for a not insignificant amount of years, to great fanfare. The overall preaching of inclusiveness or “Come and play your way” to new players at the start of 2.0 has been shown on social media to have been a key proponent in watering down the narrative message of the Horus Heresy gaming system.

Just look at historic posts on Crusade and Heresy to see both the start of this, with thousands of people trying to reinforce narrative gaming to new players, only to be told “I’ll play my way, and you’ll like it you gatekeeping prick”, backed up by mods conducting decimation of comments pushing back about this influx of players mentalities and then later in the year with the amount of posts actively trolling players with rules interpretations, interactions or list building.

It’d be interesting to see how many people are truly narratively gaming, and how many think or say they are whilst running meta-filled armies.

There’s a place for Competitive 30K. Historically, it’s found it’s own niches. Now it even has a Facebook group – which is a great place to post your narrative list to make sure you’re not playing a competitive-focused one. Arguably, it’s now Narrative 30K that’s the niche.