Adeptus Mechanicus - Archaeopter

Right so it is time to review a Adeptus Mechanicus unit. This time, for the sake of being concise, I shall be doing a 3 in 1 review.

The Mechanicus have 3 Datasheets for the 3 different Archaeopters that it can field. You CAN field up to 3x of each, but I do not really think that anyone would do that.

The bottom line is that we have a common chassis across the three Arhaeopters and then their weapons, abilities and duties change.

To summarize what each of them, this is what they can be called:

-Archaeopter Fusilave – The Bomber.
-Archaeopter Stratoraptor – The Gunship.
-Archaeopter Transvector – The Transport.

Let’s look at their statline and common rules first.

The Archaeopter is what I call a light vehicle. Toughness 9, 10 Wounds with a 3+ Save.
It is an Aircraft that can Hover, this means you either choose a 20”+ move speed with the ability to only make a 90 degree turn, if you drive off the side of the map, you go back into Reserves. Or you become a Movement 20” Flying tank.

All the variations of the Archaeopters come with a Command Uplink that can be changed with a Chaff Launcher. The Command Uplink is for when you target the Archaeopter with a Stratagem, you roll a 5+ and gain 1 CP. I do not see this as viable since there are no decent Stratagems to use on any of these Aircraft.

The Chaff Launcher gives you the Smoke keyword, ironically giving you access to a Stratagem that is actually useful to the aircraft!

Weapons

The Transport and the Bomber has the same gun – the Cognis heavy stubber array. 9 shots or 18 shots at half range. 4+ to Hit, Sustained Hits 1. Strength 4 with Twin-linked. But no AP and 1 Damage each.

It is a high rate of fire, light anti-infantry gun that will do well to mow down Guardsmen and not much else.

The Transport, the Transvector can transport 11 Infantry models (a 10 man squad + Character) it can start in Reserves in Hover mode and pop out in turn 1, 2 or 3. This gives it some good tactical opportunity. When it does this, it can arrive 6” on from a side, on Turn 3 that could be even the enemy deployment zone as long as its 9” away from enemies.

Meanwhile the Bomber, the Fusilave can fly over something and drop bombs on one unit it flew over. Roll 6 dice, for each 4+ it is a Mortal wound. This is great for chopping wounds off targets that are too tough or has saves/invuls that you cannot normally damage easily.

Finally we come to the Gunship, the Stratoraptor.

2x Cognis Heavy Stubbers – Anti-infantry
3 shots (6 together), rapid fire so double at half range (so 12 in total), sustained hits 1. Same as the guns on the other two flyers. It is just not twin linked. So more shots but without the re-roll to wound.
2x Heavy Phosphot Blasters – Anti-heavy infantry
3 shots each for 6 in total. 4+ to hit, Strength 6, ignores Cover, -1 AP and 2 Damage each. Good for killing Space Marines.
1x Twin Cognis Lascannon – Anti-Tank
1 shot with Sustained Hits 1. So on a 6 to Hit you get 2x shots. 4+ to hit, Strength 12, AP -3 and D6+1 Damage.

The Stratoraptor has Strafing Run as its ability and this gives it +1 to Hit on targets that cannot Fly. This bonus will be useless against armies such as Aeldari, Drukhari and Tau as most of their units hover/fly. However, this ability just offers a better chance to hit slower targets.

That’s it for the Archaeopter, effectively doing 3 Datasheets in one!

Thank you for reading this post! I hope that you enjoyed it!