Militarum Tempestus with Astra Militarum allies

[Lord Hanaur]

A quick follow up on te progress of this project, which is probably the best painted army I have produced and thus one that I continue to try and refine since it is both not a common army as well as being one that would not penalize me as much when i go to tournaments to compete.

 

The focus of some of the units has changed.  As i played it more, i realized that the weapons allocations were probably not right.  Some things you can only find out with practice I suppose.  theoryhammering is cool and all BUT...

 

Here is the most recent form of the force:

 

• Militarum Tempestus Combined Arms Detachment

 

5 Tempestus Command (3 Meltaguns)

 

Taurox Prime (Auto Cannons, Battle Cannon)

 

5 Tempestus Command (4 Meltaguns)

 

Taurox Prime (Auto Cannons, Battle Cannon)

 

8 Scions (2 Volleyguns)

 

Taurox Prime (Auto Cannons, Battle Cannon)

 

 

8 Scions (2 Volleyguns)

 

Taurox Prime (Auto Cannons, Battle Cannon)

 

8 Scions (2 Volleyguns)

 

8 Scions (2 Volleyguns)

 

1064pts

 

• Astra Militarum Allied Detachment

 

Company Command Squad (4 Flamers)

 

Primaris Psyker (Level 2)

 

Primaris Psyker (Level 2)

 

Primaris Psyker (Level 1

 

Ministorum Priest

 

Ministorum Priest

 

Ministorum Priest

 

3 Hydra Flakk batteries

 

40 Imperial Guardsman (4x power Axes, 4 LasCannons)

 

5 Platoon Command

 

935pts

 

The changes i made were dramatic.  Gone are the points spent on the Veteran Squad, the Commissars and the Power Fists (sadly, as they were real performers against the seriously hard hitters).  All of it had to go, in order to bolster the anti-aircraft presence as well as the Imperial Guardsman group.  Also lost the Twin linking when I disembark because I wanted more Objective Secured units.

 

What this has done for me is given me a completely legitimate unit to take on the more frequently seen melee threats without losing the utility of the Scions.  The Priest goes into the unit and we are shooting for a Forewarning roll on one of the Psykers and the War Hymn to re-roll saves.  5 rolls gives us a decent chance, though Foreboding is really pretty good too for the squad if I'm willing or forced to take a charge.

 

The Special order to use Precision Shot is of high value to the unit.  It's not an often used tool and I'll be honest I overlooked it for quite a while myself.  But the reality is, you can fire a lot of shots out of a 40 man blob squad and being able to land those shots squarely on a preferred enemy model in the unit can REALLY even the odds.  I was able in my very last game to pick off three of his four Sergeants from my enemies blob, using this ability.  Fantastic.  That made a big difference when later, he blocked my Forewarning Power in the Psychic phase, leaving me exposed to what would have been a very severe amount of additional STR 4 AP 2 attacks had I not.  More importantly, I have picked off characters that give Stubborn and Fearless to the unit!  This ability to focus in on key parts of a unit is really really useful.

 

The Astra Militarum priests aren't as cool as the Sisters of Battle Priests, but they are still excellent (and still worth the points anyways).  They provide the unit a very good punch even at STR 3 by letting the unit re-roll to hit and wound on the charge.  And then the followup to that is of course the difficulty of wounding the blob, which has an Eldar-esque 4+ invulnerable save!  Kinda like what you get when Dark Angels join a blob and their 4+ invul.  Ironically that was the matchup yesterday and my blob was able to prevail.

 

The Hydras have proven invaluable.  Even Snap Firing, as Necron bakery players will mention, they ususally hit three or four times and the Heavy Bolters fire just fine.  In the side arc of a vehicle, the Hydras are really pretty decent at knocking out the moderate and light armor from that angle.  So in games where there aren't a ton of flyers, i AM paying a fair amount for those Hydra shots BUT if they stay minimally productive in that roll, you really can't complain.  a kill is a kill even if it costs you 210 points.  I am considering the Fire Barrels for them since people seem to like to charge them and i seem to like to use them for objective snagging when they are snap firing anyways (why not move 12" at that point and present a threat?).  Could be a nice compliment.

 

Thoughts on my much improved and MUCH more successful version of the list?

 

In oparticular i am trying to figure out the following questions:

 

1.  Which units to give the Taurox Primes to.

 

2.  Fire Barrels?  if so, what gives way?  is it worth it?

 

3.  If you were playing reserve heavy, what would you put on the board?  Under what circumstances would you play reserve heavy?

 

4.  Am i better off with the IMperial Guardsman on the wing and moving up or should I plant it dead center?  It takes up a lot of room but important units tend to get dedicated to killing the Guardsman and if that happens, I kind of want to use that to isolate the enemy.  On the big bad unit but on the other hand, if they dont do that and they munch on my lesser units, then Ive isolated myself!  Tough call.  Te IG ability to defend my lines makes the central position kinda juicy but coming up the line and spreading inward as i go works too...

 

5.  other thoughts/Questions

[Guest]

If the above points are correct, you should be over 2k. 2,016pts, by my limited math skills...

 

Not sure on fire barrels, one of the more iffy options of that codex. I'd look into heavy flamer hull mounts before fire barrels. See if gouts of flame make melee opponents reconsider.

 

Are primes dedicated or fast slots? It does affect who can start in them. I'll note that if part of objective secured slot, the primes are also objective secured.

 

As for reserve heavy, I do under two circumstances. 1st is when I don't know what my opponent's list will do, so I want to be certain that they deploy first. 2nd is when my army is built around being reserve heavy, then I'm always reserve heavy unless you include heavy anti-reserve elements.

[Lord Hanaur]

The list is correct, I just forgot to adjust the totals at the bottom.  I fixed it.  oops.  Good catch.

 

No on the Fire barrels eh?  Well I did'nt want to give up my Heavy Bolters because when its not firing at skimmers and flyers, it's main guns are snap firing and so I want to maintain my ranged threat with them when that happens.  So I was jut thinking that the Fire Barrels would be a way to kind of give me a bit more chance to damage the foe without having to give that up.  Enemies that fear anti tank are keen on ending thatunit and will sometimes drop in to do it and then assault he following turn with grenades etc...  So to at least combat that a little I was considering them.  I also don't know for sure that what I'd give up would be worth it.  It;s tempting though.

 

The Tempestor Primes are HQ.  I have been geploying 8" behind the transports in turn one or in them depending on if i think I can get away with it and zooming it up hard (in Maelstrom) or just jumping in to use them as shelter on my turn.  Them being Objective secured is super cool, So I value them for the troops but often end up deep striking a pair of the Squads anyways.  So in some ways when im not going first, it would be nice to be ableto shelter the command units from artillery.  The Command units are really important to the list (because of their orders).  Giving up Objective Secured on two Taurox Primes seems not worth it if I can hide.  IF.  But I do stand to potentially lose them if I don't get first turn and their Artillery goes off.  Tough call.

 

The Taurox Primes are Dedicated Transports.  I never even thought to look and see if they can be Fast Attack, honestly.  Good question!

[InfestedKerrigan]

Yes, they share FA with the Valk Squadron.

[Lord Hanaur]

I played a game against the new Blood Angels. 

 

Couple interesting things:  Mephiston got Iron Arm as a spell so I found myself allowing his Iron arm spell to go off in order to stop his Sword of Sanguinis power.  Him having three wounds made him totally more fair to play against.  I also found that the Foreboding power wasa STRONG deterrent to stop his units from trying to charge the blob squad.  He chose to kill off easier targets, which left my firepower unchecked.  When he finally was forced to attack the blob, His Terminators+Priest+ Mephiston was wounded enough that I could handle them.

 

The Predator knocked out TWO of my Hydras in one go, even with one of the Lascannons snap firing!  That really helped him when the Storm Raven came in and I never did kill that thing. 

 

It was Maelstrom.  In the first two rounds I scored no points while he scored 4 of his. leaving me to scramble and try to accomplish the missions in hand turn three.  Sadly they were good enough cards not to discard and it was the mission where you draw to three and keep them secret, so I had to be patient to score mine.

 

We were running out of time to finish the game.  He essentially had a Storm Raven, a Predator and his Razorback left on the field.  His draw was a no go in the last round, as he was just out of units to do anything.  I scored five in the last round, leaving me up by five on cards when we called it, as I was now very much a larger force by then and could get to the objectives relatively unabated.

 

He had First Blood, Warlord and Line Breaker.  I had Line Breaker and Slay the Warlord.  So net score was 14-9.  I had a good time.  He grumbled about draws but the reality was, his army was decimated and no draw was going to save him.  He was leading the entire game, but he ran out of units to score with.  Had nothing to do with the cards.  He's have lost in almost any mission we were playing with the damage I did.  =)

 

I lost all four Taurox Primes, all three HQ squads, but kept the rest of my army on the board, tattered in places but intact.

 

Super stars were the Company Command Squad whose flamers did a number on the Death Company, killing four of them and also killing two of his Terminators with Flame and fisticuffs.  Their orders to do Preciion Shot allowed me to plant 9 wounds on the Sanguinary Priest.  Unfortunately he survived it all or shirked the wounds to other figs, but it was very cool nonetheless.

 

Mysterious Objective gave my Blob Squad re-rolls on 1's, which when combined with the First Rank Fire!, Second Rank Fire! from the same command Squad allowed me to hit hard again.  So Yay for Company Command Squads.  They died horribly to a Terminator charge but it was very impactful while it lasted.

[WestRider]

 

 

So net score was 14-9.  I had a good time.  He grumbled about draws but the reality was, his army was decimated and no draw was going to save him.  He was leading the entire game, but he ran out of units to score with.  Had nothing to do with the cards.  He's have lost in almost any mission we were playing with the damage I did.  =)

 

This has been my experience with all my Maelstrom games that were blowouts. In every case, the guy who lost was getting roflstomped no matter how it was scored. And yes, this includes a number that I lost as well. In two of those cases, I've had "destroy one or more enemy Units" in my hand from Turn 1 and never managed to score it. If I can't even get that done, I've screwed up royally in one way or another.

[generalripphook]

Personally I prefer deepstriking my melts gun scion squads. They get where they need to be, most armies don't have enough interceptor to kill the two important guy and it can either save you points in their taurox or you now have disposable ones.

[Lord Hanaur]

I did do that in my first list incarnations but here's your problem:  they end up too far away to give orders for the most part.  This actually is a pretty big deal for Militarum Tempestus units.  It's one of the difficulties with Militarum Tempestus.  Its why the Detachment restrictions really hurt this particular force.

 

Aside from that more general issue, the more specific issue to THIS game was that he had a mega deathstar coming straight up the gut and so there was no need to Deep Strike them.  The dude was coming with Terminators, Mephiston and a Priest and he wanted blood (pardon the pun).  So I wanted my stuff far enough back that he had very few if any shots, i wanted him to move to me turn one and then I wanted to popout and try to kill that stupid Land Raider.  As things turned out, I never did kill it and never would have.  His crazy Flamers were destined to be cool all game and I was much too busy attending to Terminators and such to mess around with his Land Raider anyways.  I just had to take it round after round.  It was quite effective, albeit I didn't care as much since I had Forewarning on my blob so i was at least getting some saves.

[Lord Hanaur]

This has been my experience with all my Maelstrom games that were blowouts. In every case, the guy who lost was getting roflstomped no matter how it was scored. And yes, this includes a number that I lost as well. In two of those cases, I've had "destroy one or more enemy Units" in my hand from Turn 1 and never managed to score it. If I can't even get that done, I've screwed up royally in one way or another.

Well in this case he was ahead of, or tied, the majority of the game, so really if anyone would have whined, it would have been me.  But I just kept grinding and trying.  In the end I prevailed.  Come backs are cool.

[WestRider]

And you would have made that same comeback in a regular Game, too, since at the end, he had basically nothing to Score with, and you still had stuff, as well as an advantage in KP.

[Lord Hanaur]

Yup.  I would have in any mission I am pretty sure.  The thing that really got him was his Deathstar.  It flew to the middle of the board and when i got Foreboding off, he just decided to multi-charge two Taurox's and my Warlord instead of facing all that Overwatch AND counter attack.  It was the lesser of two evils but it amounted to the same amount of firepower hitting him the round after, pummeling him.  On the other hand it robbed me of the melee attacks I would have gotten so it was a sound decision BUT an unenviable one for him to have to make.

[WestRider]

And that's the drawback to DeathStar Lists. If they do run into something that can stop their Star, they don't have a whole lot of options.

[Guest]

That's why I prefer the mini-deathstars. Though, they have their own issues.

[Lord Hanaur]

And that's the drawback to DeathStar Lists. If they do run into something that can stop their Star, they don't have a whole lot of options.

...and that's why i prefer having an answer to deathstars!

 

Though that term is probably over used to be honest.  truly unless somethingcrests over 500 points, is it really one?  i know that's getting into fine detail but I think the term Deathstar is abused at this point.  I am as guilty as anyone of using it as a handy descriptor, but it carries a negative connotation that I don't intend.  I usually use it to describe a highly effective unit combination that is difficult to hurt and puts out considerable damage, plus costs a lot.  

 

A simple blob of humanity seems to work as a way to blunt the enemies worst offensive weapons but is a more wasted resource against forces that don't congeal their points into anything significant.  In the end my blob is only 340 points and pretty much basic, barely more than a unit of Purifiers and about the same in its damage dealing ability (for a round anyways).  But when you throw in a Priest and a Psyker, now you really have something that can last longer than a round against scary things.

[WestRider]

Well, when we were talking DeathStar here, we were talking about the BA Termies+Mephiston+Priest, which is a bare minimum of 465, and probably over 500, thus qualifying by that standard. A 340 Point IG Blob isn't a DeathStar, no.

 

To me, the real defining feature is less the absolute Points Cost, and more about how the Army functions around it. If the Army gets shut down when that Unit gets shut down, it's a DeathStar.

[Lord Hanaur]

Yeah. I can see that. On the otherhand I think people would say my Talos in my Coven list is a deathstar, yet it doesnt do most of the work. Its an answer to a lot of things where needed but its kind of not the super star of that list. Still its probably in that category just because of how many points it costs.

[AbusePuppy]

The Taloii are pretty definitely a deathstar; they are not only a large portion of the army's point total on their own, they have all of the classic features of a deathstar (reliant on getting into melee to affect the battlefield, resilient in the face of most kinds of shooting, rest of the army is focused around supporting their strategy, etc).

[Guest]

...and that's why i prefer having an answer to deathstars!

 

Though that term is probably over used to be honest.  truly unless somethingcrests over 500 points, is it really one?  i know that's getting into fine detail but I think the term Deathstar is abused at this point.  I am as guilty as anyone of using it as a handy descriptor, but it carries a negative connotation that I don't intend.  I usually use it to describe a highly effective unit combination that is difficult to hurt and puts out considerable damage, plus costs a lot.  

 

A simple blob of humanity seems to work as a way to blunt the enemies worst offensive weapons but is a more wasted resource against forces that don't congeal their points into anything significant.  In the end my blob is only 340 points and pretty much basic, barely more than a unit of Purifiers and about the same in its damage dealing ability (for a round anyways).  But when you throw in a Priest and a Psyker, now you really have something that can last longer than a round against scary things.

Might just be over use of the term.

 

I think of a death star as being a combination of unit and ICs which form a potent offensive combination, often at high point costs. The mini-deathstar is a lightweight version of a deathstar, typically by having less offensive power and lower (but still high) point costs.

 

A mini-deathstar is somehting like a minimum squad of terminators and an IC, in example. I've also run mini-deathstars which were max squads of melee scouts with an attached chappy. My 3-man assault centurions with a TDA chappy are a mini-deathstar.

 

Deathstars are things like the 5th editon paladin armies, where you had almost the entire army's points in a single unit of paladins, with a bunch of attached ICs.

 

Units which are like deathstars, but focus on staying power more than offense, are called tarpits.