Militarum tempestus as allies for BA

[No ba]

Just wandering what everyone thinks about the idea of taking Militarum tempestus as allies for blood angels and how useful they are compared to other choices. 

[Charlo]

Rather large question but I suppose it summarises as:

• Cheap, low AP shooting
• mid level of bodies to drown enemy in
• lots of special weapons
• deep strike to go with your own deep strike
• Valkyrie's are pretty great
• Fast Vehicles to keep up with our own

It could work, but I think you're better off with Guard to get some decent tanks - you can still take Scions if you want too aswell!

[No ba]

Yeah I was just hoping that the MT were good enough as I really like them but guard do seem better.

[Blindhamster]

Depends on what you want out of them tbh. I'm not a big battle tank fan - we already have access to sicarans and fast vindicates.

 

MT could provide some cheaper access to ap3 and special weapons. They also fit both our play styles being able to be used as a deep strike or fast moving list.

[Charlo]

Aye, I suppose with normal ap3 guns the leman Russ isn't too needed. Why they are ap3 I'll never know xD

[Blindhamster]

Because everything (except space marines) needs to be able to easily kill space marines XD

[Riot Earp]

As i say in older posts.

One Command Squad with three plasma guns vox caster and two veteran squads with either 3x plasma or melta guns + vox caster in ba pods are great vehicle and 2+ Killer.

the Command Squad can give orders (2 in one turn) like ignore cover and tankhunter. :)

[Riot Earp]

oh i reas astra militarum. my fault.

[CaptainHelion]

Your advice is still sound, though. Just replace the vet squads with Tempestus Scions, and don't worry about the droppods

[Father Mapple]

The scions can be semi good objective holders that compare to scouts pointwise, but basically get "no vehicle drop pods" and ap 3 or more special weapons. 4+ armor on a T3 body isn't amazing, but what you sacrifice in T you get in BS4 shooting for sure.

[Captain Caine 24th]

I like the models but the 'glass hammer' or 'precision strike' fluff type units don't always work out so well in the practical table top setting. The airborne formation has some great rules, but 4 Valkyries is a big chunk of table space. In an apocalypse setting it might work. The AP3 is nice, but at S3 it has limitations (even with orders). I think the imperial guard might get you more useful orders.

As i say in older posts.
One Command Squad with three plasma guns vox caster and two veteran squads with either 3x plasma or melta guns + vox caster in ba pods are great vehicle and 2+ Killer.
the Command Squad can give orders (2 in one turn) like ignore cover and tankhunter.

These are wise words. My thought is that if a tournament is limited in the amount of formations and detachments you can take, IG/AM might be a decent choice for an ally because it can manipulate the force organization chart a bit (1-3 scions make 1 elite choice). So, if you can only have one CAD/codex detachment, you might take BA as your main detachment and you could take some veterans and some scions.

In respect to other allies... well that's an expansive question. Among other things, I suppose we'll have to consider what BA needs.

• Can you capture objectives? Yes, BA aren't the fastest, but they can move when they need to. I've one many many games by movement in the last turns.
• How do you plan to kill a knight? Maybe suicide melta pods/melta attack bikes/sternguard or something similar. I have concerns about suicide squads or even just running up to quickly to kill a big target like this. Some times you need to, some times you're opponent is just drawing you in. Allies might be appropriate to consider a different approach.
• How about a psyker heavy list? Might need help there--maybe librarius conclave. IG/AM psykers are cheap.
• What about an enemy hoard? Blood Angels do have a high volume of attacks in hand to hand. Best tell death company supper's ready.
• How about Flyers? Stormravens generally do well, you could take an aegis or ally in a hydra or stalker, or a pair of vendettas.
• What about flying monstrous creatures? Well, these guys are tough and you'll probably have to shoot them down and kill them barring a lucky psychic shriek or something. And they jink (some can get stealth/shrouded). BA are lacking in the high powered ignore cover shooting category (I'll give you the frag cannon, but that's not going to help much here). So, this could mean Tau marker lights or imperial guard orders. High volume of fire might also work to force a save, but this takes a lot of firepower. Skyfire autocannon equivalent weapons can really hurt normal flyers, but FMCs are tougher. So, you could take the (expensive) legacy of glory on the sicaran as a tool. Divination on two librarians might help, but probably only marginally.
• Space marines or mass 3+SV? Weight of attacks usually wins the day for me, 3+ saves are good, but not under real pressure. I guess you could take a land raider redeemer or lots of missile launchers. Vindicators are a fun option, even if a bit unreliable.
• Death stars (or accumulated allied characters into single powerful unit maximizing synergy of special rules)? Well, you can fight it or avoid it. Tap dancing around it with some light shooting is a waste of points. BA can make a very powerful hand to hand unit with Dante Death co/sanguinary G/vanguard. However, this is an extraordinarily expensive unit, and I'm not sure how it'd fair against other deathstars or lords of war. Allied grav centurions in a pod might be a workable ally. As far as avoidance, take multiple small units (MSU). BA can do this really really well, though it doesn't suit everyone's tastes.
• Mass infiltrators? BA has scouts to compete. You could ally in the inquisition to help curb infiltrators and scouts from messing up your battle plan.
• Mass cover saves? It's not just limited to dark angels, but they have some really good rules these days. If they have a 2+ rerollable cover save, BA shooting is essentially nullified, in which case as above, they might need help. Notably DA have benefits to overwatch making assault a little less appealing as well.
• Reserve manipulation? Dante. Karlean. Veritas Vitae. Comm relay. But, there are a number of allies here that could help too.
• Survivability? BA are fairly tough, there's a lot of access to FNP and fearless. If you can find an ally that could benefit FNP, improve toughness, or armor saves this could help BA make it to assault. In a different way you might consider different transports. An allied Stormlord superheavy could hold a lot of troops and get them into action.
• Board control? The idea here is that if the enemy controls the board they can keep you from getting objectives and funnel you into a kill box. BA are a fairly tough and physical army, but sometimes there are opponents that have just what they need to exterminate you--long range AP3, great interceptors, etc. I usually don't take allies to cover this point. Instead I structure the army to account for its internal weakenesses--so maybe drop pods to disrupt those gunlines, or intercepting units.
• Necrons? Well the 4+ saves aren't all that troublesome, but specialized formations that bring in some serious reanimation protocols (better than FNP) can be bad news. Many play a slow style necron force, but this doesn't have to be the case. Outmanuevering with a fast force isn't always an option. Drop podding in with some alpha strike isn't really all that effective because these guys can take some serious punishment. I recall two stormravens coming in and giving a single necron squad the whole 9 yards without, but failed to wipe them out. High strength can help mitigate their survivability, but for this army you need to cut the head off the snake. So, what does BA have that can really kill characters? Dante? Something to think about.
• Mechanized? Stormravens, sicarans, drop pods--if somebody rolls out mechanized you better light them up and when you open those juicy little chimera cans of baked beans and the guardsmen spill out just ask death company what to do. But seriously Toughness beats armor saves most days, and there are a lot of tools to take them down. New space marine formations could make things interesting though.
• D-Weapons? Well I'll tell you what not to do--don't bring that 800 point sanguinary guard unit (if it's templates) or a superheavy tank. Here again BA can do MSU style well and scary weapons like this don't do as much damage as they otherwise could. But, it's not that simple. D-weapons are no joke and you'll have to play smart and to the objectives regardless of your allies.

Alright, at this point I should probably just start another thread. But, the idea is that of the above scenarios, militarum tempestus doesn't really fit in (which is a shame, they're awesome models). Hopefully there's some insight in there for you as to how other allies might compare better.