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Hey guys - I'm sure this is a question a lot of people will answer with "don't use them, they suck. Just use Veterans" but I've been building a full Militarum Tempestus army. Which I'm sure a lot of you will say "don't, they suck". Well I've heard they can be competitive, plus the models are cool, so shush!

My questions are these:

1) Is it better to have a lot of 5 man squads or fewer squads with more men? More squads of 5 means more special weapons, but do you think moral could be an issue here, as they don't quite have the epic leadership goodness SM have?

2) What would be their best defence vs drop pod armies? Most of my friends run full drop pod lists, which is painful to deal with even with a competitive army, let alone an army which is hard to play. In general, how does one defend against a drop pod list?

3) Would they be better off with nothing but fliers and troops, or are Taurox Primes actually worth their points? In terms of fliers, I can just take the Emperor's Spear Ariel Formation and basically get as many Valkyries and Vendettas As I want, but Taurox Primes seem pretty cool. I'm just afraid about the tissue paper for armour and how much anti-tank people take these days

Cheers all

1.) For me personally, I would go more for the 5 man squads and have them all in Valkyries/Vendettas and Chimeras/Taurox Primes. They can dish out reasonable damage output, but are pretty squishy when it comes to taking it.

2.) Are you taking allies? If not, then I can't see how a pure Tempestus force could cope with a full on drop pod army. Pods full of melta, plasma, dreadnoughts etc could possibly table you so I would be tempted to bring an allied detachment that either has some interceptor fire to shoot down some of those pods before they can deliver their cargo, and/or some really durable units that can weather a great deal of that initial storm and take some of that firepower away from your scions that are sat in Taurox Primes/Chimeras.

3.) A flyer heavy list with lots of grav chute insertion would be awesome. Not sure about competitiveness, but it would be great fun. Does that formation allow all the Valkyries/Vendettas to arrive on the table turn 1? If so, then you don't have to worry about lots of drop pods since odds will be against your opponent shooting down zooming flyers when the first wave of pods plonk down on turn 1. If not, then you need to start with something on the table and you will run into the issue mentioned in point 2.


I guess it also depends on points really. What size of force are you looking at?

I will answer in order

0) More AP3 Than any other army ever ...

1) MSU you need the AP 1 and 2 (Better to lose a 5 man than a 10 man to a single attack) ( remember these arent platoons as troops )

2) Fortifications/Allies for interceptor/skyfire force or just make them the elite section of your Imperial guard army

3) Fast Slot with flyers..if you want some primes take them as dedicateds..either bare bones or Missle/autocannon..
the mini gat = waste..of the primes I see the Missle /Autocannon variant as the best but its still overpriced

BTW as a note you can carry more Scions in the elite section of an IG force than you can on their own..that and the fact the codex was never really finished..

(

Thanks for the quick replies
Unfortunately the Emperor's Spear Formation doesn't allow the fliers to come on turn 1 (which would be pretty incredible) but it does allow them all to come on turn 2 with just one reserve roll which can be re-rolled.
I wasn't thinking of using allies, but maybe I'll need them. What allies would be best suited? I'd rather not have them as Inquisitional troopers, cos I despise the inquisition haha.

The games we usually play are 1500pts and my current list after much tweakage looks like this:

HQ
- Command Squad w/ 4 melta

- Command Squad w/ 3 plasma and medi-pack
Taurox Prime w/ Missile Launcher and TL Autocannon

TROOP
- 5x Scions w/ 2x plasma
Taurox Prime w/ Missile Launcher and TL Autocannon

- 5x Scions w/ 2x plasma
Taurox Prime w/ Missile Launcher and TL Autocannon

- 5x Scions w/ 2x flamer

- 5x Scions w/ 2x flamer

- 5x scions w/ 2x melta

[Emperor's Spear Ariel Formation]

- Valkyrie w/ Rocket Pods

- Vendetta w/ 3x TL Lascannon

- Vendetta w/ 3x TL Lascannon

I reckon adeptus mechanicus could be fun to use as allies. The Onager Dunecrawler with its Icarus anti-air array would be very useful. Plus the Haywire weaponry the Skitarii have will help against all enemy armour.

I think the Adeptus Mechanicus and Skitarii might be rolled into one book soon. GW's start collecting box sets might be handy for allies, the start collecting Adeptus Mechanicus one comes with a techpriest, skitarii rangers/vanguard and an Onager Dunecrawler.

If you like special armies, I expect Harlequins would go well with MT.
There is a bit of crossover in roles, but they work very differently.
Any of the Eldar armies would do, but Harlies are more like the MTs.

 Slaphead wrote:
I reckon adeptus mechanicus could be fun to use as allies. The Onager Dunecrawler with its Icarus anti-air array would be very useful. Plus the Haywire weaponry the Skitaari have will help against all enemy armour.

The Skitarii do seem pretty sweet. In the list above, what would you suggest to take out, to swap with the Skitarii Dunecrawler w/ Icarus array and the troop tax?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Skinnereal wrote:
If you like special armies, I expect Harlequins would go well with MT.
There is a bit of crossover in roles, but they work very differently.
Any of the Eldar armies would do, but Harlies are more like the MTs.

I hadn't considered Harlequins. I don't have their dex so I wouldn't know what they're like, but if they could cover roles the MT couldn't, I'd be interested to check them out.

My only concern for allies is I want the list to be MT heavy. A few allies to cover some bases and to add flavour is fine, I just don't want it to end up being another army with a side of Scions haha

Tiberius501 wrote:
The Skitarii do seem pretty sweet. In the list above, what would you suggest to take out, to swap with the Skitarii Dunecrawler w/ Icarus array and the troop tax?

Hmm, tricky one that. Not sure about having 2 command squads (although I'm guessing it is for the orders). I would maybe drop the first command squad, one of the flamer squads and one of the plasmagun squads. Could then maybe do two 5 man skitarii squads (one ranger and one vanguard perhaps) along with the Onager Dunecrawler (which is a very cool looking model).

To answer the questions:
1. 5 men for Melta Guns, and anything over for Plasma.
2. Camp in cover and hide valuable units in reserve.
3. Taurox are going to be a better pick.

 Slaphead wrote:

Tiberius501 wrote:
The Skitarii do seem pretty sweet. In the list above, what would you suggest to take out, to swap with the Skitarii Dunecrawler w/ Icarus array and the troop tax?

Hmm, tricky one that. Not sure about having 2 command squads (although I'm guessing it is for the orders). I would maybe drop the first command squad, one of the flamer squads and one of the plasmagun squads. Could then maybe do two 5 man skitarii squads (one ranger and one vanguard perhaps) along with the Onager Dunecrawler (which is a very cool looking model).

Yeah the 2 command squads are for the extra special weapons and more orders. Maybe I could take out the fliers? Then I keep body count and can add in the Skitarii. Although that does demolish a lot of my anti-tank capabilities

Hey there,

I am also considering adding Scions to my collection as the models are nice (and I play Blood Angels and Guard, so they can add something to both armies). Here were my thoughts about them:

1) 5 man MSU squads seem to be the way to go. AP3 lasguns is nice, but the strength 3 really hurts them against most armies. Basically, I consider Scion Squads to be all about taking the special weapons; they deepstrike in, let loose with all they've got, and then probably they will die... it's not necessary to take more than 5 guys to get the max weapons, so why bother?

2) Against drop pods, I think the best defense is to keep only a little bit of stuff on the board, and in cover. The valuable stuff should deep strike on to shield it from alpha strike... I like 2 - 3 Taurox Primes for this as the vehicles are fast and can get out of trouble/hide pretty easily until your troops show up.

3) Again, I think the Taurox Prime is actually a decent vehicle. It has some decent firepower stock (Taurox Battle Cannon and TL Hot-Shot Volley Gun), is fast, and if you really wanted to you could put some scions inside to fire out the fire points at something. They also have a relatively small footprint, so they can stay hidden until you bring in the paratroopers, and then quickly move forward in support.

The way I see it, Scions are for coming in, letting rip with a lot of dangerous firepower, and doing some initial damage. Then a lot of them will die, but if they did some major damage when they came in this may be a decent trade. I want to run them as allies (unlike you), so my hope is their appearance and damage output is serious enough to make my opponent decide whether they need to die more quickly than my Death Company, etc. We'll see how it goes... good luck!

Tiberius501 wrote:


Yeah the 2 command squads are for the extra special weapons and more orders. Maybe I could take out the fliers? Then I keep body count and can add in the Skitarii. Although that does demolish a lot of my anti-tank capabilities

Maybe just one of those flyers. The Onager Dunecrawler's stock weapon before swapping it out for an icarus anti-air array is the Eradication Beamer which when getting in range can have up to a S10 AP1 zap which is rather good for anti-tank. Also, if you have more than one Onager Dunecrawler, their invun save increases. Maybe 2 Dunecrawlers, one for anti air and one with the S10 AP1 beamer?

Then again, you might end up having less of a tempestus army and more of a 50/50 tempestus mechanicus/skitarii force if you swap out too much stuff. Perhaps just stick with the units in the GW get started with Adeptus Mechanicus box (comes with its own rulesheet/formation sheet for them), and you'll still have plenty of tempestus goodness, but with some added skitarii/mechanicus punch.