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So here's something I thought I'd turn into a series. I'm going to try to play primarily Primaris marines, and make a series out of it. But to be honest for the past couple of months this is how I've been playing my marines since the codex came out (Previous to that with the index I used quite a mix which was effective). Doing a little teaser here.... this moment is a critical scene later in the battle: +++ Ultra's fight for their lives. Surrounded by floods of infantry, and iron might of the Steel Legion.... with the guidance of Tigurius, do the Ultra's stand a chance? +++ This game is Maelstrom at 2K. My UM army from memory: - Tigurius - Primaris Captain with Fist and Relic Halo - Lt. - 5 scouts hvy bolter - 5 scouts - 5 Intercessors w/Grenade launcher - Repulsor - Redemptor - 3 Aggressors - Ancient - 10 Reivers - 3 Inceptors - 5 Helblasters - 5 Helblasters (assault variant) IG army from memory: Steel Legion - Cmd Tanks: Punisher (not Pask!) - Russ - 4 Chimera's with troops (some characters, priests etc) - 3 Sentinels Autocannons - 1 Lascannon Sentinel - Manticore - Basilisk - Hellhound - 2 Sqds of Scions with melta/plasma and cmdr. The Scenario: Maelstrom - each player starts with one objective but only draws cards for each objective they control from turn 2 on. Deployment - Quarters. The middle bubble 18" is no man's land. - Using the FAQ I add one to my roll to go first. And deployment looked like this: ++ UM Deploy - Scouts forward on flanks - Aggressors embarked with characters. ++ The Astra deployment: ++ From the Steel Legion table quarter. ++ The Game: - Astra fail to steal the initiative. - Shortly after movement, I completely forget my Psychic phase. I pull a card for killing a unit.... this should be doable! - The Reivers back the scouts on the left flank by grav chute-ing right to the side of the building for some cover, and surround the Inceptors to insulate them. ++ Reivers mean business. Deathmasks? Check. Grave Chutes? Check. Bullets with no AP? Check. ++ - This flank opens up but can't kill the single tank. It's horrible to admit, but one thing I counted on was the -1 AP from the Inceptors. News flash: Steel Legion ignore the AP on all AP-1 weapons, thus rendering about 90% of my army incapable of modifying vehicles saves! Darn you Belasarius... darn you to hell. - The mid table opens up. I don't move the Redemptor because I don't want it hitting on 4's with the HOG. It really doesn't matter... it does some fair damage to a Punisher and the Line of Sight forces the rest of the army to go after other tanks... the scouts concentrate a Heavy Bolter strategem on the right flank to deal three mortal wounds to the Hellhound. - Helblasters, Repulsor, Aggressors open up on tanks but the shots from the lascannons only cause one wound for 5 wounds on the command tank. Not good... No other shooting I have can do anything. I get desperate with overcharging Helblasters on a high Scaffold and use Scions of Guilliman on the assault blasters, causing just enough wounds to blow up the Hellhound. I had to do this for the objective card and First Blood... giving me 2 Points. But I don't feel good about this.. .the army largely flashed against the armour, with only my 2 solo lascannon shots having ANY meaning against Steel Legion armour saves. ++ 2 Squds of Scions with Melta and Plasma. Exactly what my Repulsor needs....++ - Astra show up in my zone with the Scions and I consider using an "Auspex Scan" but with only 5 Intercessors I didn't think it was worth the 2 CP's to hit his dudes in cover.... - Astra obviously see the Repulsor as my only real threat to the army. Lucky for me he can't complete his card as it's an objective on the UM side of the table. As he starts shooting Tigurius uses his special ability to make the Repulsor -1 to hit. This works... to a degree but the amount of firepower hitting the Repulsor from all angles is immense... with help from the Scions, the Repulsor blows sky high. That's it for my real vehicle damage. He puts additional indirect fire onto the closest Helblaster squad. I take 4 wounds killing 2... neither get back up from the Ancient. - The Agressors are always shot up early, but they vaporize in T1, and only one shoots back (fails to do anything). The right flank scouts with the heavy bolter are also vaporized. ++ Here we are... bottom of T2. Astra start to push forward hard. ++ Mid Game: - In turn 2 the UM realize they have to take down some heavy vehicles as this is already looking like a slaughterfest. With the Repulsor being sent back to Belasarius' scrap yard, it's up to the Redemptor. Unfortunately I have to move it. With some assistance it does a few wounds to a tank, but not enough to fully damage one. I think I get a Chimera down this turn. But it's mostly the Heavy Flamer that does damage to Steel Legion infantry looking for glory. - Again the lack of AP-1 doing any modifying is very punishing. Most of my army is wounding on a 5 or 6. The tanks are tearing the Ultra's apart. Sadly the best hope is on the left flank where he can't quite get a bead on the infiltrators, but again with Assault Heavy Bolters, I do no modification to Steel Legion armour so for example I counted.... and this is embarrassing... but I counted 48 shots from Reivers, Inceptors, scouts, and the Redemptor to take TWO final wounds off of a Chimera. ++ Inceptors seek cover, but expose themselves to a lot of firepower. Meanwhile the severely wounded Chimera would take 48 shots to take out of the game. Reivers get ready to assault...++ - Reivers commit to a multi assault killing squads down to 1 or 2 guys. Some how I manage to score a point putting Ultra's up 3 - 0. but the Steel Legion hit back hard.... ++ Astra push back and even with Tigrius' -1 to hit, the Redemptor goes down to 3 wounds quickly. At three wounds with movement the Redemptor is essentially useless.++ - Things looks grim in Astra T2. Yet the Astra can't complete their objective. - Astra with a priest decide to assault the captain and remaining Helblasters. One Helblaster survives and the Captain fists these brazen fools in the face for their misguided sense of heroism, but the writing is on the wall... there are very few Primaris left. - The Chimera's would advance, into the Assault Helblaster unit, while shooting would take care of most of the Ultra core units. Late Game: - In a true sense of desperation the Ultra's try to hit the command tank on the left flank: ++ Desperate assault: The Reivers make contact with the Punisher, assault, but cannot wound. It simply drives off. The Inceptor loses one of its mates to overwatch and DUAL assaults the Lascannon Sentinel and the Basilisk! However both would be fine and simply move away. This bought the Ultra's nothing but a second of breathing room preventing fire from these units. ++ - The inability to cause AP adjustments to the tanks is literally killing the Ultra's. Some tanks are damaged, but mostly functional. - The Intercessors are still dealing with the Scions in the bottom corner. One squad was shot up, and then assaulted to death. This allows the other squad to break out into the open to shoot at the redemptor. - The Redemptor flames some more useless flesh bags, but the retreating Helblaster assault squad is unable to really do much to the Chimera with the -1 to hit I was afraid of overcharge effects... it turns out I should have done it.... ++ The Intercessors kill off the remaining Scions in the ruins, but it took too long to finish the squad off, and now they can only watch on as the Scions would melta the Redemptor to slag. ++ - Although Ultra's score again going up 4-0 the Steel Legion now have two 'Defend' Cards which are auto complete in my T4. So in T3 after the Redemptor is destroyed, he turns his attention to my Reivers who falied to take the final wounds off of the Punisher command tank and they are killed to a man. The failed assaulting Inceptor is likewise killed. - The last Helblasters are killed. All that remains is Tigurius, the Captain, LT, Ancient and 4 Intercessors I decide to concede. With no board presence, and zero chance of killing his tanks (all are still on the table, only a few Chimera's died), the Ultra's are pasted pretty hard in this one. Conclusions: - I considered playing '7th edition' marines in this one. IE: Get a massive Maelstrom lead, hide for the game. But I never had enough board presence to have more than one objective card. Although I accomplished them all, and had first turn, it never gave me the lead I needed to hide it out. - Steel Legion ignoring -1 Ap was so brutal I can't tell you how dehabilitating this is to a Primarily Primaris army. I would have needed Multi repulsors and 4 squads of Helblasters. The ineffectiveness of the Repulsor made a bad situation worse. Too much fire power on the other end meant I was losing either the Redemptor or the Repulsor in T1. I would lose one per turn rendering the army incapable of damage. - Hind sight being 20/20 I should have pushed the Redemptor forward and preyed to the Emperor. I needed to assault the tanks. I actually saw for the first time a scenario where the Macroplasma Incinerator is actually better than the HOG... and this would have been it. However moving forward, overcharging is a super dangerous idea. - I still have a love/hate of the Redemptor. I love the model, I think it stinks still. If I could rip off the Icarus I would. The damage chart is so punishing to this unit. I still believe a vanilla dread, or Contemptor or Ven dread are all superior. I have 2 Redemptors and have played them (together) numerous times. I've never felt they pulled their weight. - Immediate knee jerk reaction is to add vanilla marines, but I'm trying not to. My missile Devs would have been huge. A Stormraven, and vanilla razor backs... all decent options. - My test unit: the Reivers were horrible. I knew I wouldn't like the 0AP on the guns and a parking lot list had nothing to fear from this unit. the Steel Legion lack of reaction until the last minute is proof of this. The Reivers had no effect in the game. - Agressors. Fun but always dead. This was a tough game for them. There was no valid target for 0AP weaponry. But then again the mass of the Primaris had no AP in this game! - Hopefully I will have some good changes to equal this out. But by no means was the Astra list a power gaming list. I would consider that list very average. If anything it shows the weakness of Primaris and exploited it nicely. Back to the drawing board....