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So I'm looking into a Militarum Tempestus army right now because I think the models are neat and it'll be a nice way to expand my Valhallans and try something different. Without posting a specific list, I was planning on running squads of Stormtroopers in Taurox Primes, possibly with some Knight or Forgeworld flyer support. I'm hoping it'll play kind of similar to a DE force in that it's fast moving and ideally hard hitting, while still being somewhat fragile and elite. How have the folks here enjoyed playing this army, both in casual and competitive environments? I'm hardly a cutthroat tournament player, but I'd like to know how players tend to fare playing the army. Worst case scenario I get to add Stormtroopers to my Guard or maybe an allied contingent, but I'm curious how viable the army is as a whole.

 Brother SRM wrote:
So I'm looking into a Militarum Tempestus army right now because I think the models are neat and it'll be a nice way to expand my Valhallans and try something different. Without posting a specific list, I was planning on running squads of Stormtroopers in Taurox Primes, possibly with some Knight or Forgeworld flyer support. I'm hoping it'll play kind of similar to a DE force in that it's fast moving and ideally hard hitting, while still being somewhat fragile and elite. How have the folks here enjoyed playing this army, both in casual and competitive environments? I'm hardly a cutthroat tournament player, but I'd like to know how players tend to fare playing the army. Worst case scenario I get to add Stormtroopers to my Guard or maybe an allied contingent, but I'm curious how viable the army is as a whole.

I'm a Sentinels of Terra player that was putting together an Inquisition force. I picked up a bunch of old "stormtropper" models to use as acolytes and realized I ended up with a "full" Militarum Tempestus CAD (1 Command Squad (1 Tempestor Prime, 4 sp weapons) and 2 full scion squads with 2 sp. weaons) so for poops and giggles I started running them as a second CAD, deep striking them on foot with my Sentinels, and I have to tell you, they are a blast to play. Is it competitive? That I couldn't say yet. But it sure is fun.

Granted, I have never played IG, or any other low armor, hard hitting type army before, but the massed hot-shot las fire is so much fun, I am actually expanding the army at this point to the airbourne assault formation. Should be a hoot.

I have fared pretty well. I have not tried it against anything super competitive or anything and I pretty much exclusively play it as the valk formation usually with either an imperial knight and/or an AM artillery detachment to keep me on board turn 1.

The biggest concerns are you have a lot of fragile units that will struggle to keep board control and you have some serious problems with flyers if you run the valk formation (because they can blow up your valks).

One of the positives MT brings to an AM list is that the MT units can be made to be good at clearing out MCs or vehicles depending on how you outfit them. Thus your normal AM list which can struggle to down MCs can get something to drop down and kill that annoying wraithknight using it's 4+ to wound AP3 shots.

 Brother SRM wrote:
How have the folks here enjoyed playing this army, both in casual and competitive environments? I'm hardly a cutthroat tournament player, but I'd like to know how players tend to fare playing the army. Worst case scenario I get to add Stormtroopers to my Guard or maybe an allied contingent, but I'm curious how viable the army is as a whole.

The Militarum Tempestus is not a power army. I consider myself to be an excellent player and have built a Militarum Tempestus army that uses IG as allies, and it has done OKAY. I feel that it depends inscredibly heavily on its orders to be effective and so if all you're doing is adding it to an existing force, they will probably do an admirable job at whatever singular task you put them to. But they are orders dependent in a way that means if you play more than a unit and its command team, you will want more comand teams. And depending o nthe meta and tournament rules, it may be hard to fit the extra command teams you would want.

The army is challenging to play. It fights like Dark Eldar but without the advantage of an Assault vehicle. I think they could have made this a much more dynamic force to play had those Taurox Primes been assault vehicles or hell, if they had just made them COMMAND vehciles like the Chimera. But no.

The Taurox prime itself is a really fast moving mama jamma and its great with a Battle Cannon and the Autocannons on the side. I like the Taurox Prime a lot. A lot of people use the missiles and thats also fine. I play a more versatile style so for me thats the way to go but certain metas that see a lot of Imperial Knights and the like are probably much more into the missile upgrade.

Either way, the orders for the MT are superb. GREAt for taking on any task. the attraction fo the army for me, for sure, was how the army kinda has a tool for every job. but those are very dependent on the Orders so again... Protect your command groups as long as that's actually possible.

I've only played AM, so it's quite possible I'm missing something here.

However, I just struggle to see the appeal of a MT army, beyond the models. As it is, I struggle to justify including any Scions, because it seems like Veterans do their job better (and they're troops).

Other than that, you're paying Marine Prices for:
-1WS
-1S
-1T
Worse Armour Save
No ATSKNF
No Chapter Tactics
No option for Heavy Weapons
No option for Drop Pods

In exchange, you get:
- Can deep-strike (but no bonuses to make it less risky)
- Move Through Cover
- S3 AP3 guns, with less range than bolters
- Can benefit from Orders

Honestly, I struggle to see that trade-off as a good deal for the MT.

Especially since there appears to be sod-all variety. You have one troop choice (ask SoB how enjoyable that is), which doesn't seem particularly versatile. They have one transport, which costs markedly more than the basic Taurox, yet has a worse weapon and no additional armour. They have no HS, no Elite, and half their FA choices are the Taurox Prime (because is's just so amazing, right?). Finally, their order-issuing officers have just two wounds, and are only available as HQ choices (so, you can't get anything like a Platoon Command Squad to issue the more basic orders).


Again, I'm looking at this as a IG player, so I could well be missing something. But, rulewise, they seem really dubious to me.

Not a whole lot to miss. As a stand-alone army they're a one-trick pony and lack versatility. Like Knights, they make a better allies army, but even then you're probably better off just taking Marine allies, mechanics-wise.

Codex: Militarum Tempestas can pretty much be summed up as: they have a couple decent tricks, but you're better off taking some other, more fleshed out Imperial army unless you just really like the models or their fluff.

At 1000 pts and less, its pretty good.

I personally enjoy it a lot, its just so different from my Krieg list.

theyre actually NOT a one trick pony and they DO have versatility. Their orders allow them to attack vehicles, Monsters, infantry and anything else the game has to offer.

Its problem isn't versatility. when you can change ammo and now fire an AP 3 Sniper volley into a Monstrous creature, thats awesome. Need to killa tank? cool. Add rending. Want to fight in melee? Ally in the Priests. The Priests are great allies for Militarum Tempestus. Need Psyker defense? ally in the Psykers from AM. So they can handle a lot.

Their trouble is the complicated way you have to move them in and out of their transports for maximum effect. This is hard to describe to someone who hasnt tried it. But because they arent command vehicles and there is a limited number of command groups, you really have to be creative about your timing and one of your greatest assets (The Taurox Prime) also presents somewhat of a complication as well.

This army is a FUN army to play for someon who enjoys Chess or is very muchinto the idea of Special Forces. It appeals to the fluff bunny. But I will not lie: it is in no way a power army and it has to really REALLY pay attention to what it's doing.

Ironically, it hasan easier time defeating some of the better known power armies. I found it exceedingly good for knocking out Tau and Eldar. Necrons are a serious problem though and anything that has heavy air power will be a challenge for this force. I find myself very challenged by those forces, using the Militarum Tempestus.

So it sounds like they really are a precision army akin to Dark Eldar, and I like that a lot. I figure with a Knight and a Thunderbolt I'll be able to shore up most of the army's shortcomings while still keeping mobile.

I'm really appreciating the comments and insights in this thread!

 Jancoran wrote:
theyre actually NOT a one trick pony and they DO have versatility. Their orders allow them to attack vehicles, Monsters, infantry and anything else the game has to offer.

As a question, do they not suffer in terms of the number of orders they have available?

I mean, unless Ive missed something, they can only get Orders via HQ choices - none of which have Senior Officer.

So, don't MT armies struggle with only being able to cast 2 orders per turn?

 vipoid wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
theyre actually NOT a one trick pony and they DO have versatility. Their orders allow them to attack vehicles, Monsters, infantry and anything else the game has to offer.

As a question, do they not suffer in terms of the number of orders they have available?

I mean, unless Ive missed something, they can only get Orders via HQ choices - none of which have Senior Officer.

So, don't MT armies struggle with only being able to cast 2 orders per turn?

Senior officers issues 2 orders, models with voice of command only issue 1 order per turn. So yeah, that's even worse..

Does the MT codex have any other choices other than just Scions?

First a story of why I love these guys. I was facing Dark Eldar, The mission was the relic and on the center of the board was a large structure,
a combination of a landing pad and a bastion. On the landing pad sat the relic.

My force sits, two taurox's nestled in ruins, one harboring my command squad, the other with a 10 man squad, They face a whole kabalite raiding party,
Warriors, venoms, 3 ravagers, all lead by an archon. The rest of the scions plummeting from high altitude grav-chute insertion.

The Eldar move quickly across the battlefeild ravagers peeling away the Armour of the command taurox, but in cover it holds.
The Scions drop from the skies securing the structure and the relic. elite 5 man units armed with Plasmas and meltas easily destroying the majority
of the enemy transports, however the Archon's Venom remains intact. The tauroxs advance, the gattling cannons chewing away the kabalite warriors,
but not enough of the pirate scum fall, victory would've been assured for the scions had air support arrived on time but, The skies lay empty.
The Xenos counter is fierce and after an exchange of spliter rilfe, hot shots, and disentigrator cannons all that remains of the tempestus,
is a 4 man squad with with 2 plasma guns, and the command squad, held up on the landing platform of the structure.

They have reduced the Xenos to a Ravager, a ragged squad of warriors, and the Archon in his venom, more than enough to deal with the remain scions.
But as the Dark Eldar tighten the noose the Valkyrie arrives ripping apart the Ravager with missle fire. With hope of escape and the relic in hand the Scions take aim
at the Archon's Venom, spurred on by the words of their commander Plasma fire finds its mark and the Archon emerges from the wreck unscathed.
As the valkyrie hovers into position, ramp open, the Archon and his warriors ascend the landing platform.

The scions in a last ditch effort charge the warriors, holding them off as the Command squad board the Valkyrie. As the smoke of grenades clear,
the Warriors charge forward over the dead scions, the Achon leading from the rear. The valykrie pivots to face them. Hovering in place it lets lose its full arsenal
laying waste to all but a badly injured Archon. Furious and perhaps in a state of euphoric agony The Xenos rushes the Hovering Valkyrie jumping onto its canopy,
The pilot punches the throttle as the Archon's Sword pierces the hull. With rage and hatred of losing his quarry the Archons grip falters and he falls from the Valkyrie
letting out a beastial scream in the wreckage of his raiding party as the Valkyrie sails into the sky.

SaJeel wrote:
First a story of why I love these guys. I was facing Dark Eldar, The mission was the relic and on the center of the board was a large structure,
a combination of a landing pad and a bastion. On the landing pad sat the relic.

My force sits, two taurox's nestled in ruins, one harboring my command squad, the other with a 10 man squad, They face a whole kabalite raiding party,
Warriors, venoms, 3 ravagers, all lead by an archon. The rest of the scions plummeting from high altitude grav-chute insertion.

The Eldar move quickly across the battlefeild ravagers peeling away the Armour of the command taurox, but in cover it holds.
The Scions drop from the skies securing the structure and the relic. elite 5 man units armed with Plasmas and meltas easily destroying the majority
of the enemy transports, however the Archon's Venom remains intact. The tauroxs advance, the gattling cannons chewing away the kabalite warriors,
but not enough of the pirate scum fall, victory would've been assured for the scions had air support arrived on time but, The skies lay empty.
The Xenos counter is fierce and after an exchange of spliter rilfe, hot shots, and disentigrator cannons all that remains of the tempestus,
is a 4 man squad with with 2 plasma guns, and the command squad, held up on the landing platform of the structure.

They have reduced the Xenos to a Ravager, a ragged squad of warriors, and the Archon in his venom, more than enough to deal with the remain scions.
But as the Dark Eldar tighten the noose the Valkyrie arrives ripping apart the Ravager with missle fire. With hope of escape and the relic in hand the Scions take aim
at the Archon's Venom, spurred on by the words of their commander Plasma fire finds its mark and the Archon emerges from the wreck unscathed.
As the valkyrie hovers into position, ramp open, the Archon and his warriors ascend the landing platform.

The scions in a last ditch effort charge the warriors, holding them off as the Command squad board the Valkyrie. As the smoke of grenades clear,
the Warriors charge forward over the dead scions, the Achon leading from the rear. The valykrie pivots to face them. Hovering in place it lets lose its full arsenal
laying waste to all but a badly injured Archon. Furious and perhaps in a state of euphoric agony The Xenos rushes the Hovering Valkyrie jumping onto its canopy,
The pilot punches the throttle as the Archon's Sword pierces the hull. With rage and hatred of losing his quarry the Archons grip falters and he falls from the Valkyrie
letting out a beastial scream in the wreckage of his raiding party as the Valkyrie sails into the sky.

Sweet Story bro. Makin' me want to buy them.

 vipoid wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
theyre actually NOT a one trick pony and they DO have versatility. Their orders allow them to attack vehicles, Monsters, infantry and anything else the game has to offer.

As a question, do they not suffer in terms of the number of orders they have available?

I mean, unless Ive missed something, they can only get Orders via HQ choices - none of which have Senior Officer.

So, don't MT armies struggle with only being able to cast 2 orders per turn?

Yes that is why you have to take more than one Detachment. Which in some eways is fine since you like the access it gives you to beefy weapons. But still, you NEED at least three command groups and if you could swing it, four. Three for sure though. and this is definitely part of the difficulty in this army. It gets WAY more complicated once you factor in the tournament scense because so many of them are saying "One CAD plus X" and Militarum Tempestus suffer horribly if not allowed two CAD's. It's the one army you will absolutely struggle with when it comes to tourney list building.

My own list is below and built this way because frankly, the restrictions on CAD's at tournies kinda forced me into using the Formation for a while and then when 1 CAD + 1 Allied + 1 Formation got vetoed I changed again. I would rather not have used the Formation for all kinds of reasons (obsec being a big one) but now I only have two command Squads and therefore HAD to increase my allies. When NOT in a tournament you will be much more free to play the army the way it is intended. But again, below is what IM using.

Total Roster Cost: 1999

Combined Arms Detachment

115pts 4 Tempestus Scion, + 3 meltaguns
1 Tempestor Prime (Warlord)

125pts 4 Tempestus Scion, + 4 Meltaguns
1 Tempestor Prime

126pts 7 Tempestus Scion (2 Hotshot Volleyguns)
1 Tempestor

80pts Taurox Prime (Battle Cannon, Auto Cannons)

126pts 7 Tempestus Scion (2 Hotshot Volleyguns)
1 Tempestor

80pts Taurox Prime (Battle Cannon, Auto Cannons)

126pts 7 Tempestus Scion (2 Hotshot Volleyguns)
1 Tempestor

80pts Taurox Prime (Battle Cannon, Auto Cannons)

126pts 7 Tempestus Scion (2 Hotshot Volleyguns)
1 Tempestor

80pts Taurox Prime (Battle Cannon, Auto Cannons)

1079 Points

Allied Detachment 1

80pts Company Command Squad (4 x Flamers)

75pts 1 Primaris Psyker (Mastery Level 2 Divination)
75pts 1 Primaris Psyker (Mastery Level 2 Divination)
50pts 1 Primaris Psyker (Mastery Level 1 Divination)

25pts 1 Ministorum Priest
25pts 1 Ministorum Priest
25pts 1 Ministorum Priest

210pts 3 Hydras

370pts 40 Infantry (4x Power Axes, 4 x LasCannons)
5 Platoon Command

935 Points

Warlord traits

1 Fearless
2 Warlord has TL krak grenades at range, and Tank/Monster Hunter with Melta Bombs/Krak in melee.
3 Stubborn for MT units within 12"
4 MT re-roll reserves; Warlords unit scatters only d6"
5 non-volley Hot shot weapons within 12" of the warlord gain 6" of max range if they don't move.
6 +1 leadership (makes Tempestor prime leadership 10 and he has the Clarion Voxnet ability so an 18" bubble of his LD for Fear, Pinning and Morale checks.


Militarum Tempestus Orders

1 TL shooting
2 Preferred Enemy shooting (re-roll 1's to hit and wound)
3 Crusader USR (+1 Die for Running, +d3 to Sweeping Advance)
4 Fleet USR (Re-roll one or both dice for charge distance and running)
5 Non-volley hot shot weapons may only fire once each, but gain sniper and pinning. Unit can't assault this turn.
6 Adds rending to shooting against MCs or vehicles


War Hymms: Re-roll unit saves in close combat; or Priest has Smash; or unit re-rolls to wound





Automatically Appended Next Post:

SYKOJAK wrote:
Does the MT codex have any other choices other than just Scions?

Nope. Scions and their vehicles and commissars.

Lol thanks, Bob

Ok now to get into the nitty gritty. In one sense yes this army lacks diversity, but it is only aesthetic diversity, tactically they are very diverse.
If you dont like the way, Scions, Tempestors, Commissars, Taurox's and them sexy Valkyries look, don't start Tempestus.

With the Tacticle diversity, ill start from the top. Command Orders. When i first ran down the list of commands I didn't grasp what i was reading,
I had little to compare it two, having not read the AM codex, so it left me underwhelmed. My first fight with them I pretty much Twin linked everything,
To little effect and got my butt handed to me. I went online and found this http://cadiascreed40k.blogspot.com/2014/06/militarum-tempestus-scion-tactics-orders_9.html
This was very handy, for helping me understand the diversity of the Scions orders. Having gotten several games in there are somethings I would correct in here.
There are two orders, one gives you fleet the other gives you crusader, now that fleet far outways crusader but, i have found many times were doing the crusader order has been useful
This is the general diversity of the army. How to best ustilize these orders is how you'll get the most bang for scionic buck.

Individual Squads consit of 5 to 10 guys, and you will want usually want a mix of both small and big squads. Small squads you will want to specialize,
Give em two meltas or plasmas, and go big game hunting. Make a small squad with two flamers to be your front line to eat up assault or deal with hordes.
These small squads have one job to do and you got to stay focused and know what orders help them do that job.
Your mid sized and large squads, 7-10 model squads you really want to focus on the question how can I make
my Str 3 Ap3 shots hurt the most. Do i wana give em sniper? or rending? twinlink em? Should i deepstrike em right into Rapid for range?
If you give them special weapons remeber that the special weapons arent the focus of these larger squads, thats why I like giving these bigger squads
Volley guns as they synergize well with the hotshots but so do Grenade Launchers.

Your command Squads can be little terrors in and off them selves. Dont be afraid to take multiple Detachments/Formations to get the most bang for your buck
You can treat them almost like mini devastator squads giving you 4 special weapons. Make them a super unit. But remember they always want to be working with
another squad because when you attack with these guys it has to really hurt and once one threat is dealt with you want your command to be issueing orders to enable
other squads to deal with threats the command isn't suited for. A command squad can be a devastator squad that can issue orders for only 15 points extra, Or it can be
a super resilient Flamer wielding Banner Waving Close combat deterrent. A squad with feel no pain 3 plasmas rerolling prefered enemy? Yesh please!

With Commissars, the more 10 man squads you have/ the more assaulting you are doing, the more you will want commissars around. They are relatively cheap so if
you got the spare points, and the slot open take em and stick em in ur large squads to make sure they get the job done (also having two characters for CC is really good,
esp when you arm you Commissar with a Power weapon)

Taurox's really shine when they are brought in a convoy, which is really easy to do. When you run them together with camo, they can give each-other cover, also
taking empty ones, as fast attack is a good idea, cause when one pops, and they will pop having an empty one can sure come in handy. Also the firepower they can dish
out is not something to be taken lightly.

Valkyries... I mean com'on they are Valkyries, must I say more? sexy flyers capable of being anti Air or anti Ground with a transport capacity.

SaJeel wrote:
With Commissars, the more 10 man squads you have/ the more assaulting you are doing, the more you will want commissars around.

Do you do much assaulting as MT?

I ask because they're no tougher than Grenadier Veterans - which, in my experience, are assault-soluble.

I'll assault stuff, once its been, chewed up, and also more to deny the enemy charge. So my other guys can reposition. I might do one charge per game, but having 7 str 6 ap 2 hits, aint nothing to scoff at (4 from the comissar, 3 from the Tempestor) And the enemy will have to chew through 9 of my men to stop it. Some units can do it, but not after getting blasted with Meltas, Krak Grenades and plasma pistols.

I added the priests and Psychers and it makes the units very combat capable. Very.

SaJeel, thanks for your great stories and tactical breakdowns of the army; they've made for some good reading!

I went to my local comic book/game store today and unfortunately they didn't have any boxes of troopers or Tauroxes lying around; guess I know what I'm asking for for Christmas