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I am currently trying to expand my Astra Militarum and I chose Militarum Tempestus because of a few reasons:
1. I love the miniature range! I love the Scions and I really like the Valkyrie. I even like the Tauroxes 2. I really like the new Psychic Awakening rules. A lot of different options and just from reading they feel like, each regiment can give the army a new spin on it.
3. I would love to add some movement to my army,something I am currently missing.
I am not the most experienced player, I play every few months some games, so I kinda know how everything works, but I am missing to see in my army list, if I am lacking something. So, I would really like some help. "Metawise" I don't really have to worry about Knights or something. We play fairly competitive, in a way that the others try to build hard lists. I am facing mostly Eldar (with Harlies (Skyweavers and such)), Dark Eldar, AdMech or Necrons.
Anyway, I build a list starting with a brigade with the new doctrines and added the Scions afterwards. I really like the Lambdan Lions stuff, so I want to try them. Maybe later try out the Kappic Eagles in Tauroxes. Currently I dont know, if I have too few Scions and should maybe either drop the hellhound for another scout sentinel or drop a Taurox to add more Scions.
One minor error, you can't put 3 hsvg in a single 5 man squad, you did that twice. - 6 x 7 = 42 points you can allocate elsewhere, cause I strongly suggest you make a 10 man scion unit without anything but base weapons -- as your 3rd in the battalion. You will see how I like to use it below, in the early game, you can drop out of the valkyrie number 1 with a tempestor to precsision drop / short range against enemy screens, which makes screening your first turn out almnost impossible and will blow a big hole in those screens to allow a wider drop on turn 2.
The rest of this is advice, (but I run a lot of scions, so its heartfelt) .. and its not necessarily advice your playstyle wishes to follow. Lets say you don't buy those 6 hsvg and make a consolidated 10 man squad out of your current 2 5 mans. 42 points is enough to get another 5 man scion squadlet + 7 points left over -- so it only brings 1 hotshotvolleygun, but still can plop down on an objective and raise a big ruckus. Still 4 sqauds, but one is a "bodies before cost" squad. If your enemy is spamming psykers, you drop that one in front, and it soaks up a couple of smites without loss of a single spec weap.
Laurels. Why on a tempestor? So the laurels work really well on ALMOST any scions because the combination of "extermination protocols sanctioned" AND reroll 1's can be added together to make humble little hotshot lasguns into a powerhouse unit that costs only 70, or to make meltaguns or plasma safe and efficient murder houses In lambda lions it becomes just silly, as the warlord gives them reroll 1's so they can try to get elimination protocols as, effectively, a THIRD order. Situational but awesome. Want to whack enemy gaurdians? Shoot them with FRFSRF and throw in the short range buff to strength(1cp), you got now something like 37 shots barreling down onto your opponenet at s4. I believe gaurdians are t3. Did he bring a bunch of flyer bikes? FRFSRF can still put out that many shots, but you can up it with a roll of 4+ to reroll ones to wound on all those bikes. Worried you can not get anything close enough? Lambda lions have a great trick for this if you have a valkyrie (precision drop) or can step out of a nearby taurox that shot into position last turn (risky). It becomes basically overkill in some situations, but when it works it works well. (For example, plasma weapons with an inherent reroll 1 from the warlord and the order "elimination protocol sanctioned" are basically allready 100 percent useful, and don't NEED other order. Unless its something like get back in the fight+elimination protocols ... again, for scions, the laurels of command are AWESOME, but in your subfaction, they come into their own only on the base squads. Unless, of course, you want to "get back in the fight" AND "elimination protocols" or "frfsrg". Its very flexible cause your reroll 1 is a free order -- I use Yarrik to create the same effect in my own scion army of different doctrines.
Now consider this tempestor prime wants to be a lambda lion reroll 1 to hit aura guy, with the laurels. The 10 scion unit (a mere 70 points) steps out of the valkyrie (its worth every point, trust me! using the precision drop strategem to come in 5.1 inches away from the upset eldar bikes, which I vaguely remember are t4 or t5. Whatever, they are in for bad day, bad day. FRFSRF doubles your output 100 percent (well, like 96 percent or whatever cause the pistol guy shoots once anyhow) so issue that order. Because you are leaving a valkyrie rather than deploying from offboard, strategems that let the enemy shoot arriving reinforcements do not apply, so SAFE. ()You could even put 2 5 man base squads in, allowing you to snake a few objectives cheaply, and doubling the number of times that you get to roll for a second order on the troops from one command rod tempestor. It will tend to average out your firepower a bit, but its reliable-ish.)( THEN issue elimination protocols sanctioned (on a 4+) and notice you are at short range (-1 more cp, for 2 so far). Send a second command point to the graveyard to up the power of the hlsg to 4+ each. Fire 36 shots off of them (100 percent chance) and 1 from hslp, and then reroll the 6 or so 1's you just created because your lambda leader lets you, so you should AVERAGE about 31 T4/-2/1 hits. You have a 50/50 chance to wound a t4, and I think those bikes are but whatever, you lets say are lucky and issued the order to eliminate as well (4+ roll ftw). Now you roll those 31 wound tries once, generating (if you ALSO spend a cp for the gifts of the mechanicus) aroudn 5 mortal wounds and around 15 saves, so your surprised eldar biker force is down some 13 wounds (that's what six of those bikes?) Even if eldar tricker guy put some whammy to make you miss, they still are hitting on bs4+ and rerolling 1's. Not bad at all. Lets imagine however, you go up against a demon lord or a vehicle of some kind. You get to do that same kind of damage to enemy flyers or eldar .. those ship things. (ITs all just targets to me.)
So yeah, poof. The enemy then roars in impotent fury and kills 10 scions that cost you 70 points, and puts a whole bunch of hurt on your blocker (you bring a taurox pair up close, even if you advance them, because that lambda lord is so cool. Why? Well, for starters, the tauroxes ever so close to him fire all their stuff rerolling 1's, which is ok (4bs/reroll 1's is good for gaurd) but for second, he lives to buff again!. Those weak soudning 4/0/1 taurox gatlings are actually decent little slicer dicers in the lambda hands!
NEXT round he runs forward to a point where he can do the same drill only with this time, you land maybe a 10 man squad with 4 hotshotvolley and 5 hotshotnormal. Rinse and repeat, you slaughter something else horrifically.
You could do the same math with similar results if you drop a unit with hslg and boost it with a few cp and this guy and the extra order and target mortarion (who is a monster, I believe) or that tau craft that always sits in the center of a dronewall, a riptide. Or you could absolutely mess up the day for a bunch of necron immortals who did not think they would be losing 20 woudns this day.
Stuff you ommitted.Too many scion voxcasters. The tempestors usually drop down right beside the troops, just a bit back, so you really could spend those 20 points on something like I dunno, equipping the extra 5 man squad (see below) with 2 MORE plasma rifle and a plasma pistol. Potentially, this is also a route to pay for a second astropath, perhaps one that carries a second protective spell to maek that valkyrie the worst annoying thing the enemy ever tried to kill.
I would put old grudges (my hands down favorite) on a gaurd character as warlord (with the aquila of getting back cp as his relic). Now, you can reroll a LOT of woudns against a priority target with your basilisks on the first round, or even potentially drown something in the rain of indirect fire till you kill it with six's from mortars. The tempestor prime gets a second "add on" warlord trait (-1 cp) and extra relic (laurels) (-1 cp) to give him those awesome abilities. Get a big but cheap 10 man scion unit and a smaller but useful 5 man unit, so that you can flexibly pick to start the plasma all in the valkyrie on turn 1 .. or all in deepstrike if there is nowhere to stick them, and put the screen killing 10 man slam unit in the valk turn 1. Then deepstrike into the hole that blows with the plasmas on turn 1.
I usually go for advanced countermeasures myself on each and every valkyrie, perhaps becasue I always upgrade them to full weaponry. The other tempestor can grant the LL force field with the LL relic. tank ace a basilisk for a cp to do max damage each shot, why not. (-1 cp)
An astropath. In this rig, give your lone valkryie an EXTRA -1 to be hit. I have had entire armies of tau try and fail to shoot down one such bird, when I am a bit lucky, and it sure stops them shooting at lower priority targets when they know that DARN valkyrie is about to unload its swarm of little shooters on their backfield ... somewhere. You should always replace your first psyker primaris with an astropath and a third company commander .. for 1 point in cost less, you get the spell from the astropath, the ability to remove enemy cover for your gaurdsmen locally, a deny, AND two more orders / a backup for your squishy commanders. I rarely run an army with less than three of the things! While your psyker primaris CAN do other things, he can't do two things at once, so he is only as good as his caster limit. Note you could potentially alter your army with some wyrdvane psykers and use that wierd new strategy with your primaris to cast some 4 casts a roudn, that would also be pretty cool, and cast at a +1 I believe to cast. But I never have messed with wyrdvanes cause people pick them off so easily.
Yes, if you followed all my advice you would start with fewer command points and probably burn them through a lot faster, but command points in the gaurd are made to be blown in turns 1 or 2 when you still have the firepower and capabilities to use them to win.
Addendum. Point blank efficacy with a normal hslg in the hands of the lambda lions is terrifying. 36 shots of s4/-3/1 and if you lead with killing zone (lets say you popped a lone centurioni in a six man squad in cover with your plasma guys, finally, dear god that was hard, but its dead. Now this 10 man shredder unit fires at S4 and you give them ALL +1 to WOUND with the other strat!. 36 shots where you expect 30 hits, and you expect 10 of those to deliver MORTAL WOUNDS in addition to having something like 10 of them require ap-3 saves. That lambda strat is awesome. Even more terrifying would be the effect on some hapless monster or vehicle in a squad, if you got to roll those 30 dice twice to make like, I dunno, 16 or so mortal wounds? Wow, I am looking at lambdas in a whole new light now. So each mortal wound (addendum) ends the attack sequence. Its still awesome.
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2020/04/15 14:05:10
Thanks for this very detailed answer! This helped a lot on how to use the scions and where to go! I wasn't sure about the vox casters, but thought, maybe they are a bit too scattered over the field. I switched the vox casters and HSVGs for more bodies, so now I field 2x10 naked scions squads and 3 5+2 Plasma Squads. I also followed your advice on relics, the astropath and made my MoO Warlord with Old Grudges.
I think your army is going to surprise the heck out of people who look at it and wonder where your big punch is coming from, then, they will know.
Yours is the second army this week to make me rethink my own army's tactical arrangement!
