In this vid, Mister E lays out his guesses on what the coming AdMech class will be like.
I won’t go through all his thoughts, mostly just the weapons.
He predicts that the AdMech class will specifically be a Skitarii, and for its melee will have:
-Transonic Sword
-Transonic Knife
These are weapons specific to one kind of Skitarii trooper called a Siccarian Rust-Stalker. They match enemy armor’s resonant frequency so they can cut through it easier, suggesting they may have a powered on/off state (I hope not) or may have some kind of powerful innate rending that builds up on hit (ie the blades attuning themselves to the enemy armor).
Notably, having two types of Transonic weapons is a bit focused, but if they did make up whole new mechanics I can see them wanting to get more use out of it.
-Omnisian Axe
It’s extremely iconic for AdMech so seems very reasonable to me. honestly, besides being like a halberd (hopefully it’s not a short axe), I don’t really know what the Omnisian Axe does.
He notes that with Arc melee weapons they would functionally be very similar to the Shock Mauls we already have in the game, and tread on Arbite’s toes a bit. I can see the logic here, and I think our current generic Power Mauls could get AdMech-themed skins.
There are, of course, other melee options but not that many. An Arc Lance or something like that as a reach weapon would be very cool, but seems less likely, IMO.
For ranged weapons, he expects that there won’t be any long-range sniper type weapons due to the short combat ranges in Darktide, even though Skitarii do use a lot of those in lore. This is something I’ve thought as well, though perhaps they WILL gamble that it fits well enough in Expeditions to include it.
But Mister E’s ranged weapons predictions are:
-Phosphor Pistol
He thinks it will be like Focus Target in a gun form. Burn damage, but will set up other sources of damage. Could also have direct synergy with the class itself, such as Blitzes that could theoretically gain homing against that target.
-Radium Weapon (I expect a carbine)
He suggests that the radiation effect will present as a debuff on enemies that debilitates them in some way, rather than a simple damage over time effect. I think that this is a good thought, as we realy don’t need another high-damage DoT in the game.
-Plasma Pistol
Now, the Plasma Pistol I find an odd pick as it’s not really something exclusive to AdMech but does totally fit them. Honestly, the current Plasma Gun and Power Sword would both make a lot of sense being available on an AdMech class, which really starts to make it tread on Veteran’s toes . . .
However, I think it’s odd that he doesn’t even mention RANGED Arc weapons. There are not currently any ranged weapons with the shock effect (outside of Psyker and a special shotgun shell on Arbites)), but a Shock Rifle is a very obvious candidate he doesn’t mention, perhaps intentionally. Shooting enemies has a chance to give them the Shocked condition that can cause them to twitch and stop for a moment (hopefully not as long as Arbites’ shock effects).
Now, he also notes that there’s evidence for a new Power Maul and Power Sword coming (not gonna go into the evidence, but he talks about it in the vid). Perhaps nothing will come of them, but they’d be odd to be tied specifically to the new class unless it was getting at least four melee weapons (At the very least one Transonic melee, Omnisian axe is a shoo-in, and these two).
While I wouldn’t be surprised if this class was EXTRA premium (AdMech having their entire own army on tabletop, unlike Hive Scum/Arbites), I think that it’s much more likely that if the Adeptes Mechanicus takes a more active role in this war we could get other new weapons for other classes.
Thus, Plasma Pistol, the new marks of Power Maul and Power Sword would all be new weapons that Skitarii can use but also other classes (where they make sense). Vet will likely eat well if this is true since they’d probably get access to all three. Even if he loses exclusivity on some weapons, he at least gets a much bigger roster.
This also means that other “tech” weapons could be in the cards for other classes.
Now, Mister E does work with Fatshark and has been a tester before. This would meant hat he is under an NDA, but prior to the release of Arbites and Hive Scum he released similar vidoes, and he himself notes he guessed very well. I am too lazy to go back and check, but I think it’s definitely possible that this video was made with direction from FS on what he could and could not “theorize” about, meaning that we likely get some red herrings as well as some “lucky guesses”.
TL;DR: I think that with this next update we’ll get not just a new class, but access to new high-tech weapons for other classes. I expect for an AdMech class we’d see:
-Omnisian Axe
-Transonic Sword
-Transonic Knife
-Phosphor Pistol
-Radium Carbine
-Arc Rifle
And then also added, and all available to the new class but also on others:
-Plasma Pistol
-Power Sword (new type or mark)
-Power Maul (new type or mark)
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