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So, as a lot of people know, at least I think they do, if you are lacking in some department in your Imperium army, you can just throw in IG and that works pretty well, am I correct?

I am making my first army now, 1000 points of Militarum Tempestus, and I am hoping I can expand upon it for a full 2000 point army in the future. I like the best of the best, so MT was a must for IG.

I looked at Adeptus Custodes, and though I liked them, I felt there wasn’t going to be enough customization with the gold and jewels aesthetic, so I began looking at Primaris Space Marines. To me, it appears their big downfall is the lack of speed.

So I thought, Militarum Tempestus+Primaris Space Marines (probably some kind of Raven Guard.) Would this work well and be somewhat competitive?

It should work OK. Marines are kinda bad, but there are some decent Primaris units and of course RG have the best tactic and stratagem (which helps the overcome the lack of speed you mentioned.)

Besides, the Primaris marines look really great next to the tiny guardsmen.

Custodes are plenty customisable. You don't have to paint them gold.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Custodes are plenty customisable. You don't have to paint them gold.

I mean, yeah, I don’t have to, but it is one of their BIG color schemes, like Ultramarines being blue and Blood Angels being red.

^so what? Just don't pain't em gold then. I play white "Ultramarines" and no one bats an eye. Personalization is encouraged.

The issue with Tempestus + Primaris Marines is that your best units in both armies are really filling the same role. Primaris Marines bring decent mid range firepower and good horde killing, which is the same thing you get from tempestus. So while it can work from the standpoint of competitiveness it will never be near as good as taking other guard options with Marines would be.

Breng77 wrote:
The issue with Tempestus + Primaris Marines is that your best units in both armies are really filling the same role. Primaris Marines bring decent mid range firepower and good horde killing, which is the same thing you get from tempestus. So while it can work from the standpoint of competitiveness it will never be near as good as taking other guard options with Marines would be.

An interesting point you make. I have not looked too deeply into the Primaris Marines yet. So then I could imagine a viable army having a small battalion or patrol of Militarum Tempestus, whatever of Primaris Marines, and some regular Guard support could be better then?

I would think so yes. Largely when I am building a list using several factions I am looking at what each faction offers that I'm not already getting.

So Tempestus generally offer multiple special weapons, deepstrike shooting, and Anti-horde in the form of their Taurox prime.

Primaris Marines offer plasma shooting(Helblasters, Inceptors), potentially with deepstrike, decent durability(3+ save, 2 wounds, T4/5), and anti-horde (aggressors, Inceptors)

Regular guard offers pretty much anything you want, but what you get that you don't in Primaris or Tempestus are Screening units, long range firepower, high damage weapons, ignore LOS shooting.

My one statement about primaris marines is that if you are bringing them competitively it is a good idea to bring a few regular marine options as well, primarily in the form of HQ choices and scouts. The Primaris HQ choices are very limited in what they can take equipment wise and don't offer much over other choices except an increased price tag and Scouts are just a good choice in any imperium army especially Ravenguard as they allow you to set up a space to Strike From the shadows during regular deployment. Otherwise if you don't win the roll off for "infiltrate deployments/scout moves" you can quickly lose good places to deploy your units, which for things like Aggressors and Helblasters is a big deal.

Breng77 wrote:
I would think so yes. Largely when I am building a list using several factions I am looking at what each faction offers that I'm not already getting.

So Tempestus generally offer multiple special weapons, deepstrike shooting, and Anti-horde in the form of their Taurox prime.

Primaris Marines offer plasma shooting(Helblasters, Inceptors), potentially with deepstrike, decent durability(3+ save, 2 wounds, T4/5), and anti-horde (aggressors, Inceptors)

Regular guard offers pretty much anything you want, but what you get that you don't in Primaris or Tempestus are Screening units, long range firepower, high damage weapons, ignore LOS shooting.

My one statement about primaris marines is that if you are bringing them competitively it is a good idea to bring a few regular marine options as well, primarily in the form of HQ choices and scouts. The Primaris HQ choices are very limited in what they can take equipment wise and don't offer much over other choices except an increased price tag and Scouts are just a good choice in any imperium army especially Ravenguard as they allow you to set up a space to Strike From the shadows during regular deployment. Otherwise if you don't win the roll off for "infiltrate deployments/scout moves" you can quickly lose good places to deploy your units, which for things like Aggressors and Helblasters is a big deal.

I have heard that taking regular marines is pretty good for Primaris, but I don’t necessarily want to do that. Would you do ratlings instead of scouts? I am pretty sure they have similar deployment abilities.

I have found that Primaris work well as support for IG tanks. They're pretty resilient to small arms, so if enemy's big guns have better targets the Primaris tend to to live long.

They really don't scouts deploy as part of your deployment anywhere more than 9 inch away from an enemy unitor deployment zone.
Ratllings are set up after deployment but before the first turn so with enough acouts your rattlings are in your own deployment zone

Ice_can wrote:
They really don't scouts deploy as part of your deployment anywhere more than 9 inch away from an enemy unitor deployment zone.
Ratllings are set up after deployment but before the first turn so with enough acouts your rattlings are in your own deployment zone

Ah, I see.

Yeah no point in ratlings if you are taking ravenguard as ravenguard deploy the same way. The advantage of scouts is being able to deploy during regular deployment out of your zone. They aren't a requirement, they are just a very good choice.

Breng77 wrote:
Yeah no point in ratlings if you are taking ravenguard as ravenguard deploy the same way. The advantage of scouts is being able to deploy during regular deployment out of your zone. They aren't a requirement, they are just a very good choice.

And I bet I could use this to encroach on my enemy’s deployment zone they can’t deepstrkie screen as effectively, right?

The ravenguard strat? yeah so long as they don't have similar deployment units, or worse Scouts/nurglings. If they do they will block off your ability to encroach on their zone.

Breng77 wrote:
The ravenguard strat? yeah so long as they don't have similar deployment units, or worse Scouts/nurglings. If they do they will block off your ability to encroach on their zone.

I meant the scouts, sorry.

 Crimson wrote:
I have found that Primaris work well as support for IG tanks. They're pretty resilient to small arms, so if enemy's big guns have better targets the Primaris tend to to live long.

I've found the same thing. RG Primaris are legit, and they bring Sfts Aggressors to the party.

Great discussion here! I think it could be a competitive combination.

 Apple Peel wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
The ravenguard strat? yeah so long as they don't have similar deployment units, or worse Scouts/nurglings. If they do they will block off your ability to encroach on their zone.

I meant the scouts, sorry.

yes scouts push back opponents from deploying too close, and open up space to use the ravenguard strat because all pre-deployment set up/moves require a 9" buffer, so if you have scouts somewhere you can pretty much guarantee that you can place your other stuff with them. It also means things like scout sentinels cannot push forward, and if they live they prevent deepstrike turn 2.

Bare in mind if you take Raven Guard, deploying units using Strike From The Shadows will count against the total number of units not deployed during deployment. This could cause issues if the rest of your army are Tempestus Scions. Just make sure you have plenty of units that you'll put on the battlefield during deployment!

And power level, if your area is using beta rules. One more reason you probably need basic guard, and things like scouts.

Yeah, the I’m hoping the beta rules don’t bite my idea, I have not made a full list idea. Ideally, I hope this list would revolve around awhole lot of medium ranged fire and keeping the enemy busy at all directions.

 Apple Peel wrote:
Yeah, the I’m hoping the beta rules don’t bite my idea, I have not made a full list idea. Ideally, I hope this list would revolve around awhole lot of medium ranged fire and keeping the enemy busy at all directions.

Some Raven Guard Devastators would be quite nice, with the -1 to hit. Stick them in cover and they will be quite difficult to root out!

So, with these Scout squads, how should I load them? I just want them in place to make my RG Primaris get in closer, and to act as a distraction or nuisance.

You have lots of options: chainsword and pistol can be quite annoying, I like them. Sniper are best, but a bit too expensive really, unless you have a lot of flimsy HQ units in your meta, then they can mess with your opponent quite satisyingly (company commanders, fireblades, etc). Shotgun/bolter is a wash, both are solid. I tend to think a squad of shotguns road-bumping in front of your opponent's main deployment, and one or two sniper units off to the side. 18" from your troops is the magic number for denial.

 Apple Peel wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Custodes are plenty customisable. You don't have to paint them gold.

I mean, yeah, I don’t have to, but it is one of their BIG color schemes, like Ultramarines being blue and Blood Angels being red.

The codex has examples of white and black custodes. There are various divisions within the custodes that use different color schemes. It's not the same as painting ultramarines a color other than blue (which is still totally fine).

 Apple Peel wrote:
So, with these Scout squads, how should I load them? I just want them in place to make my RG Primaris get in closer, and to act as a distraction or nuisance.

Depends on what you want them to do after deployment.

Charge screening units? Bolt pistol and knife
Camp midfield objectives? Bolter.
For raven guard shotgun is probably the worst option.

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Apple Peel wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Custodes are plenty customisable. You don't have to paint them gold.

I mean, yeah, I don’t have to, but it is one of their BIG color schemes, like Ultramarines being blue and Blood Angels being red.

The codex has examples of white and black custodes. There are various divisions within the custodes that use different color schemes. It's not the same as painting ultramarines a color other than blue (which is still totally fine).

If I remember correctly, those also had gold in their color schemes, it just wasn’t the main part.

 Apple Peel wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Apple Peel wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Custodes are plenty customisable. You don't have to paint them gold.

I mean, yeah, I don’t have to, but it is one of their BIG color schemes, like Ultramarines being blue and Blood Angels being red.

The codex has examples of white and black custodes. There are various divisions within the custodes that use different color schemes. It's not the same as painting ultramarines a color other than blue (which is still totally fine).

If I remember correctly, those also had gold in their color schemes, it just wasn’t the main part.

They are not short of their daily allowance of vitamin G, yes.

 Apple Peel wrote:
So, with these Scout squads, how should I load them? I just want them in place to make my RG Primaris get in closer, and to act as a distraction or nuisance.

I think the camo cloaks are well worth it, at least in my games. It requires you to be playing on tables with a decent amount of ruins/woods of course, but you should be anyway. A 2+ save means they basically have to dedicate decent AP weapons to rooting them out, and if they are doing that it means they aren't using those weapons on other things which is great!

Given they'll be quite sticky with the cloaks, I also think the missile launcher is worth it.

I like snipers too. Which the math on them isn't great, the psychological effect on your opponent of what COULD happen is often worth considering.