Richard Siegler is a world-beating Warhammer 40k player – literally. Siegler is a dedicated Archmagos of the Adeptus Mechanicus, commanding the Martian tech priests to victory at the World Championships of Warhammer 40k in 2025, a top eight finish in Worlds 2024, and first place in massive events including the LVO, the US Open Orlando, and US Open New Orleans. We interviewed the machine god’s favored servant to uncover the tactical core of the Adeptus Mechanicus.
This is the third interview in Wargamer’s masters series, where we talk to players at the very top of the game about the Warhammer 40k factions they’ve built their reputations with, and what their expectations are for those armies in Warhammer 40k 11th edition. Though these answers come from experts, these articles are very much aimed at players considering a new army, or looking at competitive play for the first time.
When he’s not crushing tournaments, Siegler is a professional Warhammer 40k coach with The Art of War coaching studio, and reads “a lot of science fiction novels – I just finished the most recent Murderbot Diaries book” – thematically very appropriate. “I’ve been playing the Mechanicus since 8th edition”, Siegler says, “but I didn’t really start playing them competitively until 9th edition”.
Co-ordinated success
The faction’s gameplay style has fluctuated in that time, but at their core he says “Admech are all about buffing relatively cheap units to do specialized tasks or punch above their weight class”. “This was more true in 9th than 10th for most of it, but the multiple [balance] dataslates brought a lot of the old themes back into the army, with powerful Ironstriders and Sicarians.”
That starts with the army rule, “Doctrina Imperatives”, which lets you choose each round between buffs that favor standing off from the enemy, and buffs that favor rushing up to engage. The Doctrina Imperatives also provide additional buffs to battleline units and to units that are close to your battleline – many units in the army also get other bonuses from palling around with battleline troops. Many units also have a chance to refund CP when you target them with a stratagem, giving the army more freedom in how it uses stratagems for buffs without needing a specific enhancement or support character.
Despite being made of scrawny little guys, Siegler says that “usually Admech excels at defense for the cost of their units, with most units boasting invulnerable saves thanks to their enhanced bionics and the Omnissiah’s blessing”. Yet though they’re equipped with the most advanced guns in the Imperium, “Admech have lower AP weapons on most units than many other factions, and can struggle into armor of contempt style armies unless they properly allocate units to ensure the utter destruction of the target”.
With that said, “Admech right now are very good at killing one of the enemy’s power units in a single turn, thanks to Cawl’s Invocation of Machine Vengeance”, Siegler explains. “But they can struggle killing multiple such units in a turn, and so need to be very careful to use movement to delay those other targets that won’t take damage.”
The need to position units near one another to trigger buffs, get the right units in position to attack the right targets, and delay the parts of your opponent’s list that you can’t destroy, means that “Admech get into a winning position typically through movement and positioning first, damage second”, Siegler says. Learning how to choreograph that movement so that every part of the Mechanicus’ war machine is in perfect sync should be a top priority for new generals.
Eeking every last watt of power out of your army by using all its bespoke abilities can also be extremely satisfying. Siegler says that “usually it’s the tricky rules that are subtly powerful like Cawl’s +1 OC aura, the Pteraxii Skystalker fire and fade, or reactive moves” he has the most fun with. You can see him pull off many of those tricks with the 11th edition rules in this video battle report rematch of the 2025 world championship finals against Liam VSL.
Looking ahead to 11th edition
Siegler can already see one opportunity for the new edition: “Ruststalkers are more exciting with the change to Precision weapons”, he says. Without getting into the weeds of how this weapon ability works now, in practical terms Precision weapons are likely to cause additional casualties among a unit’s bodyguard after they’ve finished slaughtering the character leading it.
But there’s a major challenge coming down the line – the changes to the benefits of cover. “-1 Ballistic Skill is a major de-buff to our shooting, if you aren’t used to using a Protector Imperative style list”, Siegler says. It just means that “having units in both protocols is much more important”.
Siegler’s Worlds’ 2025 list contained a Skitarii Marshall with the Cantic Thrallnet enhancement, which gives a Skitarii unit the benefit of both the Protector and Conqueror imperative for a turn. There’s similar tech in the Cohort Cybernetica via the The Transcendent Cogitation stratagem, and in the Eradication Cohort via the Omnicogitator enhancement. The Haloscreed Battle Clade also has an enhancement, but may not be part of 11th edition.
When it comes to wish-listing for the faction’s 11th edition Codex, Siegler says “I want to see more power shifted to Tech-Priests and the top-down command nature of Admech – I’d love to see more personality from the Mechanicus game find its way into the tabletop”. Aside from being one of the best Warhammer 40k games for both gameplay and narrative, and having a certified bop for a soundtrack, Mechanicus plays up the extent to which the Mechanicus’ military are merely an extension of the Tech Priests’ will, something which the extremely complex 9th edition codex for the faction also reflected.
Are you ready to install the necessary cognitive implants to take command of an Adeptus Mechanicus force? Or do you have a Mechanicus army locked in a storage vault that you’re going to bring back into service for 11th edition? If you swear allegiance to the Omnissiah, come and let us know about your progress in the Wargamer Discord community!
Source: Wargamer
