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So, as a long time admirer/collector/painter, I'm finally looking to collect an army to play at the local hobby shoppe. I just have some questions.
I'm looking at Militarum Tempestus for a lot of reasons.

1) I've always loved the high risk/high reward tactics of fast, efficient, glass cannon armies like Dark Eldar.

2) As opposed to glass eldar, I love the fluff of MT significantly more. Don't get me wrong, as a hedonistic fiend myself I still love the glass eldar. I just like the idea of grimdark Orphan Harvard more (>Schola Progenium)

3) The army theme of a select few always trumps blobs in my mind.

That aside I'm aware of the shortcomings of the MT — few options, low models, the taurox prime (how is it WORSE than a ravager?!), etc etc.

I may be noobish but I can see that in order to make it competitive, or you know … FUN, I would need to bring an allied detachment — and this is why I have come to you.
I'm thinking of bringing an AM mechanized allied detachment for long ranged support — having a division of artillery to soften the enemy as my crack rambos search for the surgical blow seems to have good synergy.

But I'm essentially totally green when it comes to the actual game, so I'm looking for suggestions, input, criticism — you know. Something I can count on my fellow fa/tg/uys to help out with

Thanks fam in advance ❤️

You want them entirely in formations. Everyone else can play the Objective game better than you, so you need the offensive output. Losing OS is entirely worth that.

I've recently been running an allied detachment of MT alongside my mech-Guard list with great success. The detachment consists of a MT Command Squad with 4x Plasma and two 5-man Scion squads with 2x Melta each. I deep strike them in, pop tanks with the Meltas and take out heavy infantry with the Command Squad (the 'preferred enemy' order is gold here; 8x plasma shots at rapid fire range re-rolling 1s!!!). It's 325pts in total and has worked wonders for me.

The rest of my guard is centred around Pask & buddy, three Melta vets in Chimeras, two LRBTs and three Wyverns. It's quite the combination.

A Scion squad costs about the same as a torbox, but is more valuable.

I love my scions but its an army that can really do well or folds. Of course im also odd and have 60 scions and 8 tauroxes......

Basically you're going to have trouble with long range fire power and also against MC spam. Everything else you can rock paper scissor with melta squads. Allying in armored support is an excellent idea and even running an emperors fist detachment (5 russes 1 tech priest) is a great distraction unit while your scions do the surgical work.

Another idea is the formation from the scion starter box, the hellrain brigade. (id also suggest as a starter all you need is 2-3 of those boxes and you pretty much have an army already). It is a taurox, a command squad, a scion squad (no limit on size) and a commissar (a tiny tax, and he is an IC). The rules are basically as long as the commissar is alive (and you can hide him anywhere since he is a LD 9 stubborn independent character for 5 melta bombs) the Scion squad gets to deep strike back in if it was wiped out. I have experimented a little with small and big squads and it seems small suicide squads do get more out of, and with 2 meltas in a 5 man squad you can react well with your strikes around the board. The only thing that can really improve all of this would be to get more reliable bonuses to reserve rolls (aegis?) and of course rolling that extra amazing scatter d6 less warlord trait (it should be an army wide rule darnit!)

My next goal is to combine Scions and Deathwatch for some mega elite army madness, esp since the Deathwatch has the anti infantry part down and the scions are pretty good at anti tank.

One question, I am somewhat interested. I am scratch-building a "Knight" to support a small amount of scions, but I would use it only in special instances and pre-warning the opponent. Is more of a modelling project so I am looking for alternative "ground support".

I am having much fun converting some of the scions in IG veterans with carapace. How much would work 3 chimeras with veterans and command squad as a "ground support" waiting for the scions to deepstrike? 1000-1250 pts.

In other words, how much is doomed a "carapace and transports only" army?

In which cases the officer of the fleet would be too useful to not be included? I fear is never useful, but I was curious if people used one in combination with DS scions.

 CommissarEastwood wrote:
So, as a long time admirer/collector/painter, I'm finally looking to collect an army to play at the local hobby shoppe. I just have some questions.
I'm looking at Militarum Tempestus for a lot of reasons.

1) I've always loved the high risk/high reward tactics of fast, efficient, glass cannon armies like Dark Eldar.

2) As opposed to glass eldar, I love the fluff of MT significantly more. Don't get me wrong, as a hedonistic fiend myself I still love the glass eldar. I just like the idea of grimdark Orphan Harvard more (>Schola Progenium)

3) The army theme of a select few always trumps blobs in my mind.

That aside I'm aware of the shortcomings of the MT — few options, low models, the taurox prime (how is it WORSE than a ravager?!), etc etc.

I may be noobish but I can see that in order to make it competitive, or you know … FUN, I would need to bring an allied detachment — and this is why I have come to you.
I'm thinking of bringing an AM mechanized allied detachment for long ranged support — having a division of artillery to soften the enemy as my crack rambos search for the surgical blow seems to have good synergy.

But I'm essentially totally green when it comes to the actual game, so I'm looking for suggestions, input, criticism — you know. Something I can count on my fellow fa/tg/uys to help out with

Thanks fam in advance ❤️

Hey I am glad to hear you are going for it with Militarum Tempestus.

Here is the way I allied mine:

• Militarum Tempestus Combined Arms Detachment

125pts 5 Tempestus Command (4 Volley Guns)
80pts Taurox Prime (Auto Cannons, Battle Cannon)

125pts 5 Tempestus Command (4 Volleyguns)
80pts Taurox Prime (Auto Cannons, Battle Cannon)

126pts 8 Scions (2 meltaguns)
80pts Taurox Prime (Auto Cannons, Battle Cannon)

126pts 8 Scions (2 meltaguns)
80pts Taurox Prime (Auto Cannons, Battle Cannon)

126pts 8 Scions (2 meltaguns)

948pts

Astra Militarum Allied Detachment
80pts Company Command Squad (4 Flamers)

75pts Primaris Psyker (Level 2, Force Staff)
75pts Primaris Psyker (Level 2, Force Staff)
50pts Primaris Psyker (Level 1, Force Staff)

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

160pts 2 Hydra Flakk batteries (both with Hunter Killer Missiles)

355pts 40 Imperial Guardsman (4x power Axes, 4 LasCannons, 3 Meltabombs)

30pts 5 man Platoon Command

900pts

Ally with the Inquisition for their access to Servo Skulls, 5 fire port chimeras you can very cheaply fill with plasma/melta gunners, a psyker for psychic shriek, and/or monkeys who gak out heavy weapons. Inq chimeras can be armed with double Heavy Bolter + psy ammo for a lot of S6 AP4 shooting. Inq can also make some decently durable melee squads with their Crusaders + Priests making 3+ rerollable invuln saves in melee a thing.

 Vankraken wrote:
Ally with the Inquisition for their access to Servo Skulls, 5 fire port chimeras you can very cheaply fill with plasma/melta gunners, a psyker for psychic shriek, and/or monkeys who gak out heavy weapons. Inq chimeras can be armed with double Heavy Bolter + psy ammo for a lot of S6 AP4 shooting. Inq can also make some decently durable melee squads with their Crusaders + Priests making 3+ rerollable invuln saves in melee a thing.

One question - can the inquisitorial chimera be armed with the FW autocannon, and if yes, can the autocannon get the psy-ammunitions?

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:
Ally with the Inquisition for their access to Servo Skulls, 5 fire port chimeras you can very cheaply fill with plasma/melta gunners, a psyker for psychic shriek, and/or monkeys who gak out heavy weapons. Inq chimeras can be armed with double Heavy Bolter + psy ammo for a lot of S6 AP4 shooting. Inq can also make some decently durable melee squads with their Crusaders + Priests making 3+ rerollable invuln saves in melee a thing.

One question - can the inquisitorial chimera be armed with the FW autocannon, and if yes, can the autocannon get the psy-ammunitions?

Psyammo has a list of weapons it works with and it unfortunately doesn't work with autocannons. Now if you where to somehow get an assault cannon on a vehicle then it would be S7. An Inq Razorback with TL Assault Cannon could also take psyammo.

 Vankraken wrote:

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:
Ally with the Inquisition for their access to Servo Skulls, 5 fire port chimeras you can very cheaply fill with plasma/melta gunners, a psyker for psychic shriek, and/or monkeys who gak out heavy weapons. Inq chimeras can be armed with double Heavy Bolter + psy ammo for a lot of S6 AP4 shooting. Inq can also make some decently durable melee squads with their Crusaders + Priests making 3+ rerollable invuln saves in melee a thing.

One question - can the inquisitorial chimera be armed with the FW autocannon, and if yes, can the autocannon get the psy-ammunitions?

Psyammo has a list of weapons it works with and it unfortunately doesn't work with autocannons. Now if you where to somehow get an assault cannon on a vehicle then it would be S7. An Inq Razorback with TL Assault Cannon could also take psyammo.

True that! Thanks! An inquisitor opens a lot of options for conversions, and I could pass a converted character I made for inquisitor, it fits its theme very well!

I haven't played MT, but I've researched them a lot. Here are my thoughts.

1) Hellrain Brigade is win. Take one, +air assault formation or MT CAD, +ally.

2) Put your Hellrain Commisar in a nice shooty squad and sit them in a Bastion w/ VSG and Comms Relay (to get your MT in). Inquisitor squads work great for this.

3) Get anti-Gargantuan Creature. You will surely face riptide/wraithknight spam on your adventures of purging aliens. Don't limit yourself to IG allies. Some marines in drop pods with grav guns would work nicely and mesh well with inquisitorial flavors (cough deathwatch).

4) Don't put your meltas in the scion squads. You're wasting your hell guns. Put the meltas in the command squad and plasmas in the troop squads.

5) Resist the temptation of the knight. A knight on the board by himself can easily be destroyed turn one against certain opponents. They need support, or they crumble.

Given the entire Tempestus army has MTC or immobilized re-rolls, I think it would be interesting to incorporate Earthshock into the army (difficult terrain within 4D6 of the blast marker). Certainly useful against transport/troop spam, enemy units trying to conduct their own counter-DS from Reserve, skimmers and bikes.

The Earthshock cannon itself isn't that special (S8 AP3, 7"). But on the bright side, the Banehammer is 9HP/AV14 for cheap (400-ish), transports 25, and is open-topped for disembarking. So you could potentially incorporate a dedicated assault unit into your own army.

I haven't thought this out yet against the top table lists, but I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on how to make it effective.

Sadly with the montka or whatever book I think they changed how the banehammer works to just DT under the template for whatever survives.

 danjbrierton wrote:
I haven't played MT, but I've researched them a lot. Here are my thoughts.

1) Hellrain Brigade is win. Take one, +air assault formation or MT CAD, +ally.

2) Put your Hellrain Commisar in a nice shooty squad and sit them in a Bastion w/ VSG and Comms Relay (to get your MT in). Inquisitor squads work great for this.

3) Get anti-Gargantuan Creature. You will surely face riptide/wraithknight spam on your adventures of purging aliens. Don't limit yourself to IG allies. Some marines in drop pods with grav guns would work nicely and mesh well with inquisitorial flavors (cough deathwatch).

4) Don't put your meltas in the scion squads. You're wasting your hell guns. Put the meltas in the command squad and plasmas in the troop squads.

5) Resist the temptation of the knight. A knight on the board by himself can easily be destroyed turn one against certain opponents. They need support, or they crumble.

1) I find the formations very spammy. I have a couple of valkyries (in another country but I can get them back, had IG then) but I am not going to get more than 2 tauroxes and 2-3 chimeras. The hellrain can be interesting, I do wonder what is the best combination, perhaps a full squad with volley or plasma, or a "termicide" team. Do you think that the formations are the only way? Genuinely asking (as below, I have no experience with MT is more a conversion fun thing).

2) The idea of the bastion is intriguing, actually. It can be lead to the building of a sniper+cannon team

3) I have the intention to use carapace armour or things that I can count-as (say, stormie + riot shield = inquisitorial henchman with power armour). Marines would be too much of a stretch. Besides, I do wonder if a couple of teams could b taken in the elite slot. In other words, are there AM orders that can be useful for a specific Scion squad combination, better than the MT ones?

4) I see the logic behind this, but isn't extremely useful an order on a squad able to shoot 8-9 plasma shots plus the order effect. True, you can use the orders on another squad, but is not granted that the squad with the officer and the 5-10 men plasma team will be within range each of the other in the right moment.

5) If for the knight you were addressing me, is because I am scratch-building it as an AT-AT. Still gathering the pieces tough, on Ebay, after insightful suggestions on Dakka and some laugh (you are great, guys). Is not going badly! Scions will be black and white, I am considering a ML 1 inquisitor with black armor too (already painted, in case I will use it as a AM or MT warlord)
So is going to stay, but only when the opponent is willing. I will use sentinels with the veterans to keep the theme. Valkyries fit, too, IMHO.

Outside of the Hellrain which is situationally good, I think the best Tempestus detachment is an Allied or Combined Arms Detachment with Objective Secured, full of cheap deep striking units. They can compete for objectives every turn while the other half of your army blasts opposition. The new Astra Millitarum artillery formation is ideal for this, as are shooty imperial Knights.

I've had some measure of success with 2 Hellrain Brigades using 10 man squads with 2 plasmaguns each while keeping the Commissars in a Valkyrie. I just use the 2 big squads as my workhorse units, dropping them in where they cannot be ignored and must be killed due to the threat they pose. I probably deployed about 800 points of "free" scions in the last game I played using this tactic because they would deploy, fire and then die. It seems to me that you might as well max out the re spawning squad as much as possible in order to get the most value out of them.

Why 10 men though? You could easily just get in more Formations that way to get more expendable special weapons.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Why 10 men though? You could easily just get in more Formations that way to get more expendable special weapons.

I only have 2 Tauroxes but 30 Scions, so that plays into it, but my main reason for having 10 man squads is to try and make the Scion orders more efficient. I try and issue the orders to the 10 man squads while keeping the command squads alive and supporting with HSVGs. Since Scion orders are excellent, but so scarce, I want them to affect as many models as possible.

Let me know how the orders work on the large squads I have been curious about it but have been playing my orks recently instead.

 cranect wrote:
Sadly with the montka or whatever book I think they changed how the banehammer works to just DT under the template for whatever survives.

Damn cranect... way to throw cold water on my inspirations

Oh trust me I know.... Oh do I know.... I wanted to fake 2 banehammers to cover the table....

ExFideFortis wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Why 10 men though? You could easily just get in more Formations that way to get more expendable special weapons.

I only have 2 Tauroxes but 30 Scions, so that plays into it, but my main reason for having 10 man squads is to try and make the Scion orders more efficient. I try and issue the orders to the 10 man squads while keeping the command squads alive and supporting with HSVGs. Since Scion orders are excellent, but so scarce, I want them to affect as many models as possible.

I think the major weakness of Scions altogether is their lack of orders. If each squad leader could give half the orders (like junior officers) or if Primes had 2 orders at 24 inches then they would be possibly competitive and *gasp* tactical in their application. As it goes the only order you give is twinlinked or preferred enemy to your command squad and thats it. I certainly agree with making them do more work. I love how the orders can turn your men into snipers, making that Wraithknight or Daemon Prince feel some pain.

 generalchaos34 wrote:

ExFideFortis wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Why 10 men though? You could easily just get in more Formations that way to get more expendable special weapons.

I only have 2 Tauroxes but 30 Scions, so that plays into it, but my main reason for having 10 man squads is to try and make the Scion orders more efficient. I try and issue the orders to the 10 man squads while keeping the command squads alive and supporting with HSVGs. Since Scion orders are excellent, but so scarce, I want them to affect as many models as possible.

I think the major weakness of Scions altogether is their lack of orders. If each squad leader could give half the orders (like junior officers) or if Primes had 2 orders at 24 inches then they would be possibly competitive and *gasp* tactical in their application. As it goes the only order you give is twinlinked or preferred enemy to your command squad and thats it. I certainly agree with making them do more work. I love how the orders can turn your men into snipers, making that Wraithknight or Daemon Prince feel some pain.

I completely agree. I have often contemplated running my scions out of the AM codex and dropping a CCS out of a Vendetta with them just to get some more orders flowing. It would be interesting to see how the damage output of a 10 man Scion squad receiving FRFSRF compares to a 10 man receiving PE vs various toughness values, for example. Has anyone done the math on that? Ignores cover is also very strong with AP3 weapons and the loss of the sniper order could be compensated for with some well placed plasma guns.

Orders are key for the Militarum Tempestus.

 Jancoran wrote:
Orders are key for the Militarum Tempestus.

Yep but getting squads in range does not look easy. You end up using them on the same team of the officer.

Naw I use the Taurox Primes and deep striking to get into position. Fast vehicles for the win. The Command Squads generally like to fire from a vehicle with abandon, and since a lot of the abilities don't work as well on the Volleygun, you give the command squads those weapons and slap meltas on the normal units so that you're not wasting orders on your comman Squads. That's been working well for me. If you give the command squads the meltas then you kinda have to give them orders instead of the larger and more impactful squads.

I guess it matters how many volleyguns you wanna bring but I personally would bring a lot. They are a devastatingly good weapon once the enemy is out of its transport.

My big problem is getting forced to use two and sometimes three units just to melta sometyhing open. That is where allies really come in. Taurox Primes tear up Rhinos pretty well, and they tear up a lot of things well, but ultimately you want as much of the Militarum Tempestus force on anti-personell duty. To that end, I think the allied forces need to take up the load when it comes to anti-air and anti-tank so that the MT units dont have as much of that to do. Its one thing to use a unit to finish soemthing off but committing two and three of your GREAT anti-personell units to do tank killing duty SUCKS.

To preserve orders for them, and to maximize the Volley Guns, that's the way I've gone. IG Lascannons that can never be killed are nice. They can pummel away at larger targets like Riptides and Knights, while I rain in anti-personell units to clean up the messes, and if the enemy comes up and wants to get squirly in close combat with my blob, I wish them luck. very few things can take it out and even fewer are going to like it much.

Militarum Tempestus played entirely on their own is much harder. I've dont that too, but Flying Circus's and Tyranid Hive Tyrant spam will really quickly disabuse you of the illusion that you can handle everything with just the MT,

I'm seeing a bit of talk about the new BA charge termies, I think that's also an option with potential. 3x TH/SS squads causing mayhem in the backfield might relieve a ton of pressure on the command squads during their usual suicide missions.

The only problem is you've got no force enablers like Psykers, or Reserves/Scatter tricks. Ordo Xenos maybe? Access to Servo Skulls and with Rad Grenades you'd be doubling out irritating T5 assaulters like Wraiths, TWC, and bikes with FNP. Still need a Culexus to really cover your bases but I guess you can never have it all...

I'm guessing a Iron Hands Librarian Conclave won't work because they won't get that charging from Deep Strike.

Well, nobody's getting that bonus anyway. Formation-specific benefits don't inherit to attached ICs. I think you're also potentially dealing with FAQ questions by attaching SM characters to a BA unit.

Daemon Summoning is probably most competitive but I do like the idea of getting Sanctuary and Hammerhand onto the Termies. Hector Rex is a pretty straightforward option here, plus with Rad Grenades you can double out T6. Fluffwise it's nice.

Incidentally there was a MT primary at ATC this year. List was:

Tempestus Militarum CAD

HQ
• Commissar

TROOP
• Scions x5 w/ x2 melta + taurox prime (Missile and auto cannons)
• Scions x5 w/ x2 melta + taurox prime (Missile and auto cannons)
• Scions x5 w/ x2 melta + taurox prime (Missile and auto cannons)
• Scions x5 w/ x2 flamers + taurox prime (gatling and auto cannons)

Skitarii Maniple

TROOP
• Skitarii Vanguard x8 w/ x2 arc rifles, omnispex, taser goad
• Skitarii Vanguard x8 w/ x2 arc rifles, omnispex, taser goad

HEAVY SUPPORT
• x2 Onager Dunecrawlers w/ x2 Icarus Arrays

Execution Force Formation

• Eversor
• Callidus
• Vindicare
• Celuxsis