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Hi everyone.

Im getting back in to 40k after taking a break and getting started with my ultramarines. I went to a small mini tournament today, had 3 games with various scenarios but no maelstrom missions. 1250 point limit.

This is the list i used:

Ultramarines Battalion

HQ

Primaris captain with master crafted bolt rifle, santic halo

Primaris Lieutenant with power sword

Elites

Redemptor Dreadnought, macroplasma, storm bolters

Troops

3 units of 5 man intercessors with grenade launchers

Fast Attack

3 bolter inceptors

Heavy support

5 hellblasters

Transport

Repulsor, lascannons, heavy gatling cannon, storm bolter, icarus rod pod and ironhail heavy stubber

6 command points

Total is about 1248 from memory.

My first game was against salamanders. The guy was new like me. He had most of his points tired up in a fire raptor which I destroyed turn 2 with my hellblasters/repulsor. The redemptor dreadnought was a standout, killing his inceptors, a bunch of tac marines and generally distracting him from my repulsor. The intercessors were ok, but really only for capping objectives.

The other game was against orks, and well the mission was just not in this guys favour - easy ultramarines victory.

My last game was a thousand sons/daemons list, including magnus, ahriman, a daemon price, one of those flying close combat chaos things and a bunch of daemons on foot. I got first turn but my opponent stole the initiative. Magnus got halfway across the table, then warp timed and got right up to my repulsor. The flyer immediately go in front of my dreadnought. Magnus also got his 3 ++ save power off. Magnus easliy took out my tank and stood up to a few rounds of hellblaster shooting without taking a single wound. I was tabled at about turn 3.

All in all I really enjoyed the day, but i got thinking about how i might have handled the magnus list. Looking at the tournament, about 3-4 players out of ten had bought magnus or mortarion. So I was thinking of adjusting my list slightly to handle these uber baddies. Wanted to get everyones opinion on a new list:

Ultramarines patrol

HQ

Tigurius, war lord with the 5+ command point refund (proxy with primaris librarian)

Gravis Captain, santic halo

Troops

2 units of 5 man intercessors

Fast attack

3 bolter interceptors

3 plasma interceptors

Heavy Support

5 hell blasters

Transport

Repulsors, lascannons, heavy onslaught gattling cannon, onslaught cannon, storm bolters, icarus rocket pod.

3 command points

Total 1251 (apparently not such a big deal to be over by 1 point).

So the plan is to use intercessors only for taking objectives. Otherwise i've got the gravis captain and hellblasters in a repulsor. Tiggy casts both might of ancients and uses his -1 to hit ability on the repulsor. If I get surprised by a primarch again i've got tiggy to cast nullzone with a fairly high success rate. I've also added some plasma inceptors given how well there bolter cousins perform, plan is to drop them and use scions of guilliman for max benefit. I know ive only got 3 CPs, but the space marine stategems dont seem that great, and i do have war lord trait to potentially get some more.

So what's everyones thoughts, are these reasonable changes? Or should I just get guilliman to survive in this meta?

Thanks!

Ironically Gman is in the same points league as the other primarchs but he's just not the same level of beast as them 1on1 what he does is much more synergistic in that he makes everything around him better. His +3cp is nice aswell but he's not going to solo magnus or morty without the odds realy bring in your favour. What he can do is realy boost high shot low stength shooting against most targets due to his reroll/reroll bubble. But Thousand sons have some nasty AOE psyhcic powers that punish castles. Also 1d against rubrics is just giving them +1 save. Untill they fix the chapter tactics on vehicals a dreadnaught is a better choice Imo

Suggest you to deviate from the Primaris take a Spearhead detachment and Guilliman that might stand a chance to survive that Magnus list you run into.

Take Tigirus in that spearhead, to help you mitigate those nasty smite spam a little bit. Then, take 3 squads of Devastators, each have 3 ML and 1HB. Sit then all close to Guilliman, make good use of "Hellfire round" and "Flakk Missile" stratagems, put total 2D3 mortal wounds on Magnus whenever possible each turn, which might be your only chance to get through that 3++ rerolling 1s. The rest MLs are not bad as well against things that are more about Inv saves then armor saves and have "only" a T7, and can use the Frag round to shoot lesser Daemons. Use some rest points just have some Scouts for screening. Watch the distance between the screen and your Devastator, don't give room for Magnus or winged DP using warp time to jump over your screen.

Well, I actually really want to say don't play such list, taking a Primarch at 1250pts is just tooooo over the top. But WTH, if opponent take Magnus or Morty, then it feels ok to fight fire with fire.

Thanks for the replies!

I agree guilliman is probably sub-optimal at this points level. I also dont want to join the ranks of people squeezing primarchs in to 1250 point games.

As for getting some devastators - I agree mortal wound strategems are the way to go - but i dont have any normal marines and dont want to invest in them (just personal preference). But it would definitely work though.

I think i'll tweak the list if only to include a nullzone librarian. I mean the chance i'll get them close enough AND cast nullzone is small, but at least there's a chance, and it would be epic if i pull it off.

With assaulting into you a psycher has a even better chance of stopping his powers. No one can say for certain what you could have done, but when someone dumps that much into a single piece, My strategy would be have been to try to feed Magnus cheap stuff, and killed the rest of his force, then rope-a-doped Magnus as you scored points, with your carefully protected scoring units as he can then either- camp a single objective, or try to kill more of your stuff.

If you look at your force if you had managed to keep him away from your repulsor, he might never have managed to get his points, if you just fed him things like a Intercessor squad, captain, LT, and maybe a few others.