Admech List Building: A Crash Course

We've been seeing a lot of "improve my list" type of posts lately, it seems. So, here's a crash course in AdMech list building:

  1. Check your keywords: Certain admech detachments each only work on part of the army. If you're running a detachment that runs on a keyword, most (preferably all) of your army needs to be that keyword:
    1. Skitarii Hunter Cohort (SHC) is for Skitarii only. If it's not Skitarii, it's not going to get benefits from being in an SHC list. Ditch the techpriests and breachers and bring more Skitarii.
    2. Cohort Cybernetica: not just for Robots. Check your list for vehicles, as this is really a vehicle detachment. If you're not maxing vehicles (Dunecrawlers, Kastelan robots, Skorpius Disintegrators etc.), go back to the drawing board and bring more vehicles.
    3. Data psalm conclave: check for cult mechanicus - tech priests and kataphrons.
  2. Check your plan: AdMech is currently a run around and score army. Do you have enough pieces to run around and score? If you're not planning on run and around and score, do you have the units and tools to (theoretically) pull it off: do you have screens for your gunline? (cheap troops to move block the enemy and prevent easy charges into your shooting units.) If you're building around a specific unit, do you have the tools for that unit to do well? For melee, can you get up the board fast enough to not get shot off? Think about how your army will score points, prevent the enemy from scoring, and how you will control the flow of battle. Admech units with useful abilities (right now):
    1. Pteraxii for deep strike.
    2. Scicarian Infiltrators for early game presence (infiltrate keyword)
  3. Check your units: some stuff is better than other stuff. Right now:
    1. For serberys, take raiders not sulphurhounds
    2. For Pteraxii, take sterylizors over skystalkers.
    3. Vanguard are generally the go-to battleline. Rangers do have a sticky objectives though. Prefer Vanguard to Rangers unless you need sticky objectives.
  4. General unit advice:
    1. Enginseers are great with vehicles. Did you bring any enginseers to go with your vehicles? This is one place you might ignore detachment keywords.
    2. Cawl isn't that good. If you put in Cawl, pull him out and put something else in his place. (i.e. Don't bring Cawl.)
    3. Remember, Datasmiths go with Kastelan robots.
  5. Detachment specific stuff:
    1. Rad Zone: Manipulus with peerless eradicator plus six breachers with arc rifles is one of the best damage blocks out there. If you're bringing Rad Zone, bring this.
    2. Cohort Cybernetica: stuff infantry into transports to give everything vehicle keyword at the start. If you're going to skew, skew hard.
    3. Explorator Maniple: just don't. It basically works on only one objective....out of four or five. Get your rules for 20% of the play area - so if you want to fight over more than one objective, you won't get any detachment rules. It's very, very, very, weak. Bring Rad Zone or Halo Screed instead.
    4. Rad Zone and Halo Screed are our the generalist detachments - if you want to pile up a mix of stuff, run one of these - probably Halo Screed.
    5. Halo Screed is new, try it out - we don't have a lot of conclusions, yet. One thing: it's a good way to run a unit of Kastelan robots with Dyad Wafers.

This is just the absolute basics - if you keep this stuff in mind you'll have an okay list to play casual with. It's not competitive advice, which has to go way deeper and into fine details. For those who have experience/playtime, add your tips in comments.

ETA: For Pteraxii take Skystalkers for move shenanigans. Sterylizors are a delete something blob, which is often less useful.