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Hi there,

I have a pretty substantial Primaris force built up but I'm missing repulsors. I know Primaris are short on anti tank without them, but two fully kitted out laspulsors come to over 600 points. Might it be viable to put more boots on the ground and rely on plasma dudes instead of tanks? My group usually plays 2500 to 3000 point games.

Your dudes will be shot or chop to pieces within 2 turns if they are not protected by transports. Marines are squishy for their points costed.

I'd agree in the case of traditional marines but for 600+ points I could throw down another 30 Intercessors. That's 60 wounds an opponent has to get through and turns their anti-tank stuff into expensive sniper rifles.

remember Primaris have 2 wounds each and a range advantage. they can proably work alright. that said Maybe invest in some reivers to drop in and hammer their gunline right at the start.

Yeah, I've 20 Reivers, too! If I go Ravenguard could Strike from the Shadows with Aggressors? Would Ravenguard tactics mitigate my lack of transports?

Yes they would, also repulsor with units inside are 1st target to any anti tank weapon and doesn't really help getting you unit there in a point efficient way. With 3000 you may consider some but it is still some big investment.

It can work fine, yes. Ravenguard are good foot-sloggers. Assault hellblasters are great for them.

You can still pack some lascannons, on dreadnoughts and maybe flyers. A contemptor mortis is a great lascannon platform for ravenguard.

Mandragola wrote:
Itvcan eork fine, yes. Ravenguard are good foot-sloggers. Assault hellblasters are great for them.

You can still pack some lascannons, on dreadnoughts and maybe flyers. A contemptor mortis is a great lascannon platform for ravenguard.

Yeah, I'm sort of deliberately limiting myself to pure Primaris. I'm fine with the lack of lascannons - or at least I've come to live with it outside of using a repulsor or two. And there's the rub. Do I need to use repulsors, models which I find pretty ridiculous, for transport/anti-tank? Or is it viable to take those 600 points and throw down a shed load of extra dudes? My meta is fairly laid back but there are lots of veterans who know the game inside out and come up with lists that look very fluffy and not at all competitive until you try and compete against them. We also try and play at a high points (2-3K) level which gives access to a lot of goodies.

My list without the repulsors looks something like this:

Ravenguard Tactics:

Gravis Captain
Captain with Power Sword
Lieutenant

6x5 Intercessor Squads

6 Aggressors with Flamers
6 Aggressors with bolters etc
10 Reivers
1 Redemptor with Macro Plasma

3x3 Inceptors with Assault Bolters

3x5 Hellblasters

Plasma Inceptors are worth a look. They get the plasma close to the enemy much faster than Hellblasters, can be put in reserve to protect them from alpha strikes and to allow them to alpha strike instead.

Downside is no Jumping Primaris captain to hold their hands if they overcharge.

Ravenguard basically want intercessors, aggressors (with bolters) and hellblasters - preferably the assault ones. The ravenguard CT clearly favours a shooting army over anything else. Any unit that wants to get close to the enemy will lose the benefit of the CT very soon.

Flamer aggressors are pointless. They don't really get any more hits than bolter ones, and at less than half the range. They hardly ever get to fire twice because there's rarely anything in range, and anyway they wouldn't get more hits if they did. On top of that they are more expensive, for no reason. It's only possible to make any kind of argument for them if you put salamander ones in a repulsor, and even then they are a bad use of points.

Dakka aggressors are fantastic for ravenguard though. Using SFTS they can set up 12-18" from the enemy and start gunning things down right away. A unit of 5 gets an average 95 shots, which tends to make a dent in just about anything.

The reason for assault hellblasters is that they are much better at staying outside of 12", and they get to fire more shots sooner, so they do more damage.

If you aren't using any lascannons then you'll need a ton of hellblasters. 20 or more, I'd say. You might then run 10 assault and 10 rapid fire guys. The enemy will often come to you so you'll get to rapid fire a bit, and the lower cost and higher strength are good to have.

Drop the plasma redemptor, which has a pretty weak shooting attack compared to just fielding more hellblasters. A dakka redemptor makes a bit more sense, and can provide your army with some cc punch that's otherwise very much lacking.

You can run a gravis captain but personally I'd get hold of the store birthday guy with power fist and plasma pistol, if possible. The gravis guy just costs more for no real benefit.

A problem with playing primaris-only is that your army will end up being quite spammy. There's no real way around that, as you only have a few units to choose from.

Thanks for the advice. I don't mind spamming things. A lot of very fluffy lists rely on spam. Good point on the flamer Aggressors. I had it in my head to drop them into or behind cover somewhere around my opponent's shootiest stuff and then move, advance, flame, charge the following turn. Even just to tie up a tank or two.

The plan for the Gravis dude was for him to babysit two squads of he'll blasters and provide a counter punch in case of deep striking enemies.

I think you're right about the dakka redemptor, dakkademptor?

Do the Reivers have a place? I think I need them purely as a sort of distraction Carnifex.

Banville wrote:
I'd agree in the case of traditional marines but for 600+ points I could throw down another 30 Intercessors. That's 60 wounds an opponent has to get through and turns their anti-tank stuff into expensive sniper rifles.

You better be using raven guard or iron hands tactics, 60 wounds is not that many to put down in two turns for Guard, Death Guard, and Sisters armies.

Banville wrote:
Do the Reivers have a place? I think I need them purely as a sort of distraction Carnifex.

I'm not sure if they do. On one hand, they are arguably quite a decent replacement for more intercessors. With carbines they give reasonable amounts of dakka and staying power, plus a couple of fun special rules. But they don't really add loads to a ravenguard army, which can already do most of the things they do.

I'd consider a unit to drop in and take objectives. 5 guys with carbines and grav chutes could be useful, potentially held in reserve for a couple of turns until there was space to drop into. Without them you could find that your army was too slow at crossing the board to take objectives. If they are cheap, low down the list of threats to your opponent (behind all the aggressors and hellblasters) and not easy to get rid of (at range and in cover) then they could last quite a while. Units like that can sometimes win games.

On the face of it though, nothing about reivers particularly combos with ravenguard's abilities. They work up close (and not especially well!) while your CT tells you to stay outside of 12".

No, you do not need repulsors. If you play ITC-missions or similar then las-cannons are not essential either. But you will probably need scouts.

Okay, so the consensus seems to be I don't need Laspulsors, even at high points levels. But more plasma is needed. Are plasma inceptors worth it or should I just go for 5 more hellblasters?

Hmm mm... I had a feeling about the reivers not being optimal. Buuut, they are sneaky and raven guard successors are sneaky.... I might keep them as a nod to fluff.

Not having 48" guns would drive me nuts. But maybe this can work...

I know you said primaris only, but just wanted to throw it out there I've seen a couple primaris only SM armies that include contemptor or venerable dreads. Escpecially with contemptor, they fit asthetically, give you a heavy weapon platform, and have the bonus of benefitting from chapter tactics. Also it helps break up the spam a bit.
Just saying I wouldn't necessarily write dreads out of a primaris army.

Would Predators break your primaris only rule? they are super solid anti tank.

Otherwise I absolutely LOVE the onslaught cannon. Its basically a super powered heavy bolter, which is the most versatile weapon in the game (it wounds everything on a 5+ at worst) and a few Redemptors can get you a lot of shots on the field, combined with the even Dakka-er Repulsor with Onslaughts and heavy bolters you are fielding something along the lines of 36 str 4-5 shots. Even against the hardiest of targets they are going to fail an armor save.

Play SW primaries. For 1 CP you can outflank, saves you from being a shooting range.

Martel732 wrote:
Not having 48" guns would drive me nuts. But maybe this can work...

I think it might, but only at high points levels. I was originally planning on doing a Castellans of the Rift army, but they're explicitly Ultramarine, whose Chapter Tactics are solid but not stellar. So I'm going to go homebrew with them and call them the Gyrfalcons. This will let me swap out Chapter Traits to see what's most effective. Hence the current Ravenguard thinking.

To those who replied about slotting in Predators and things, I realise that'd be the way to cover a lot of bases but I'm determined to go full Primaris. And I know, and to quote, 'Never go Full Primaris.' But I'm going to, anyway.

I might try and find room for more Intercessors. Should I just bring bare bones characters, stripped down to the minimum or do people think, like I do, that the Gravis Captain is needed for melee counter punch?

Played against a las-repulsor last night with my orks... its totally horrible to play against.

If i was running a primaris themed army i'd have at least one maybe 2.

Plasma hellblasters with an ancient so they can shoot when they die is also horrible to face. Esp if you have chapter master in there for re-rolls

I don't rate intercessors personally, think normal marines bring more to the party but if its a theme then ye gotta roll with em.

Banville wrote:
Yeah, I've 20 Reivers, too! If I go Ravenguard could Strike from the Shadows with Aggressors? Would Ravenguard tactics mitigate my lack of transports?

Primaris infantry lacks anti-tank/-monster shooting.
In a competitive setting, an army needs about 40% of anti-tank/-monster shooting.

 wuestenfux wrote:

Banville wrote:
Yeah, I've 20 Reivers, too! If I go Ravenguard could Strike from the Shadows with Aggressors? Would Ravenguard tactics mitigate my lack of transports?

Primaris infantry lacks anti-tank/-monster shooting.
In a competitive setting, an army needs about 40% of anti-tank/-monster shooting.

Hellblasters in sufficant numbers can do that job. ten of em is potentially 20 wounds a turn. that'll put down all but the toughest

I've yet to field my all primaris army but I believe BrianDavion is correct. 40% spent on hellblasters gets you an awful lot of plasma.
Let's see (numbers from memory) 18+15=33/ model.
2000*0.40 = 800 points.
800/33 = 24 models.

Those models happen to be really good against most infantry too, so you can easily afford to to make it 25 or 30. Creating a potential 30*2*2 damage in rapid fire range.

I still think there's a very strong case for using assault hellblasters rather than rapid fire ones in a ravenguard army. It's a hell of a lot safer to be 24" away than 15", especially when you want to stay outside of 12".

You'd need at least one captain, and maybe either a second one or something like a redemptor or two that can switch on their reroll 1s auras if needed.

Rest of points to go on 3 intercessor squads, a second HQ and aggressors for dakka.

To be clear, it would be better if you had some lascannons. My approach has been to convert vehicles so that they have Primaris crew, so that they look ok with a Primaris army. My storm raven and Xiphon have Primaris pilots. I'm considering making some "counts as" dakka dreads of various types, using the easy build redemptor as the basis of a sentinel-like walker.

Primaris can work as a foot slagging army - you don’t have much choice - but as others suggest I’d take some other supporting units such as tanks or flyers. The Redemptor with the macro plasma ranged weapon is really good too.

I prefer the gatling cannon.

I think footslogging is the way to go right now anyway. Repulsors are too expensive to use extensively for a traditional 2000 pt. game, and if you only run one it will get blown up immediately, especially if it has guys inside.

You just have to be careful with your deployment - they won't move far during the game, so you have to make sure you put them where they need to be. And, as others have said, 30 - 40 primaris marines in cover is a tough nut for most armies to crack. You maximize durability and threat density by running it that way.

I think it would help to import some anti-tank from outside the primaris line, but you really don't need as much as you might think. A lot of primaris stuff can kill vehicles just fine. Hellblasters can melt a tank for sure, and dakka aggressors will just math everything to death - tanks included. And depending on how tank heavy your local meta is, that might be enough.

Aggressors and hellblasters could combine to make a pretty serious army I think. A problem I've often had with aggressors is that they can be picked on and removed, but that obviously wouldn't work if you had quite a lot of them.

I'd be interested to see what would happen if you fielded 20+ aggressors and hellblasters - almost certainly using RG CTs - but possibly dark angels. Finish off the army with some intercessors to screen, a captain, librarian and lieutenant (or two captains to spread the reroll bubble onto all hellblasters) and maybe add some inceptors to drop into hard-to-reach areas.

Dark angel hellblasters using the stratagem for +1 damage would be a pretty hard counter to these fancy new Custodian guys.

Mandragola wrote:
Aggressors and hellblasters could combine to make a pretty serious army I think. A problem I've often had with aggressors is that they can be picked on and removed, but that obviously wouldn't work if you had quite a lot of them.

I'd be interested to see what would happen if you fielded 20+ aggressors and hellblasters - almost certainly using RG CTs - but possibly dark angels. Finish off the army with some intercessors to screen, a captain, librarian and lieutenant (or two captains to spread the reroll bubble onto all hellblasters) and maybe add some inceptors to drop into hard-to-reach areas.

Dark angel hellblasters using the stratagem for +1 damage would be a pretty hard counter to these fancy new Custodian guys.

I think this could definitely work. The beauty of an all primaris infantry army is that there is only a small subset of weapons that are ideal at killing it (plasma). Aggressors can get picked on, but they can't shoot at your aggressors, hellblasters, inceptors, etc. all at the same time. They have to pick...and any one of them could do some serious damage if they leave it alone. Factor in intercessors camping an objective and that makes for even more difficult choices for your opponent. I could see a finely tuned AM gunline giving you problems, but overall it should do pretty well against most armies.