Hellrain Reinforcements - What? (semi-rant warning)

[Master Antaeus]

I'll get the rant out of the way now and then get to the juicy tactical stuff in a sec.

 

This formation should be for the regular guard and not MT.  It encourages Commissars to lead from the extreme rear as the commissar is one of the saddest guys in our limited codex (failed out of Airborne school).  Recipe for infinite scions: get like 5 of these formations, put all the commissars in a valkyrie and just zoom it off the board every chance you get.  Change the name of the formation to Airborne Tactical Dining In and go kick ass with the real heroes of the codex.  Also, disposable scions?  How many highly-trained Imperial war orphans (warphans?) do they think there are?  It would have been far fluffier to be able to put a medic in each unit to stretch the life of the troops you already have as opposed to calling down infinite reinforcements.  Alternatively, it would have been super-cool to be able to run after shooting or shoot after running.  Hanging out in deep strike formation is decidedly unhealthy when knights stride the table.

 

That said...

 

It's nice to see the MT getting some love as well as a formation that is a little more manageable than the airborne or truck formations.  Good price for those units, too.

 

Likes: A decent, self-contained formation and roughly on par with the space marines one (when they annihilate your unit with double shooting, you can just deep strike back in and shoot them again).  If you can afford to put camo netting and an augur on the Taurox Prime, you can always deep strike them in range of it and between camo and its terrain special rules, the TP becomes more survivable than simple math might suggest.  I don't know if I'd put the command squad in the Taurox since they're so brutal when they deep strike with 4 special weapons. I definitely would not put the Commissar in the Taurox; he is the unfortunate key to your whole formation and he only needs to be alive to do his job.  If you're allying in Grey Knight Paladins or something equally outlandish, then by all means, put him with them.  Otherwise, you're probably better off putting him with a different unit and walking him on the table as late as possible.

 

Dislikes: Unless you run a bunch of these formations (which would be awesome!), you will likely get to use the reinforcements rule a maximum of twice per game.  Is that worth paying the tax on this nearly-worthless HQ (only worthless in this army; they're pretty good in regular IG/AM armies)?  Only you can decide that.  If I ever run this formation, I'll need some Kurganova Commissars from Raging Heroes to take my mind off the fact that I actually fielded Commissars in an MT army.

 

Of course, this assumes you have lots of models and options to kit out your Scions however you choose.  Assuming you are playing this formation right out of the box (presumably against other people playing their factions' formations right out of the box).  The box says you get the following:

 

10 Scions, 1 Taurox Prime and a plastic Commissar that you will grow to hate as soon as you put him in melee with literally anything.

 

So let's unpack that.  I assume (haven't seen the inside of the box) that this means you get the equivalent of 2 boxed sets of Scions, the truck and the dude.  This gives you:

 

2 flamers

 

2 plasmaguns (the plasmas are one-armed only, so you can use these in addition to 3 other special   weapons without having to do a lot of cutting and green-stuffing.

 

2 meltaguns

 

2 medics

 

2 tempestors

 

2 vox guys

 

2 grenade launchers

 

2 stupid stupidguns that you should never, ever use.

 

We can make something pretty rowdy out of that.  I have heard tell that some leagues are allowing people to play what the box makes without recourse to using points, in which case, I recommend the following:

 

-1 Lord Commissar with carapace armor, plasma pistol, meltabombs (fits the model)

 

-Command Squad with medic (glue lightly or sticky-tack) and 2 meltaguns, plasma pistol on the tempestor prime

 

-5 Scions with 2 plasmaguns, plasma pistol on the tempestor (glue lightly) and vox-caster (again, glue lightly)

 

-Taurox Prime with missile launcher (do not glue down), TL autocannon, augur array, camo netting (improvise), relic plating

 

Simple tactics: put the command squad (and, I guess, the Commissar) in the Taurox, ram it through terrain across the board, staying around 30" away from your opponent until your big squad of scions comes in by deep strike.  Watch them die, while your Taurox runs away.  Rinse and repeat to victory.  Lead from the rear, HOOAH!

 

I have to do actual work at the moment and will edit or comment on my own post my recommendation for a pointed army as well as where I think you should take your collection next, o budding Scion player.

 

Edit: Less Scions than I thought in the box and now the promised pointed army.

 

-Commissar with plasma pistol (the power pack on his giant steak knife is pretty small.  You could call it a CCW) and carapace armor.  If you have another model of a commissar that has a bolt pistol, that'll save you 15 points you can spend elsewhere.  Paying 40 points to give him a pair of extra wounds is not cost-effective and every time you fire his plasma pistol, you risk him detonating in a cloud of puppy tears and broken dreams as your reinforcements standing in the door of the aircraft hear the Commissar scream over the radio and decided the battle is lost and the Emperor is dead.

 

-Command squad with 2 meltas, grenade launcher, medic (glue grenade launcher lightly) and plasma pistol on tempestor prime.

 

-Scions (5) with 2 plasmaguns

 

-Taurox Prime with TL Autocannon, missile launcher and camo netting

 

Comes out to exactly 400 points, though Army Builder doesn't have any of the special wargear options for the commissar.

 

Place Commissar in Taurox (I would place the command squad there, as well since they don't have deployable clones waiting in circling aircraft, also should the worse come to pass and your truck gets all blowed up, the medic can give you one more roll to keep your Commissar in the game.) and use the taurox as a mobile firebase.  Don't be afraid to flat out to avoid enemies assaulting the truck and your whole army should always be in terrain.

 

[WarriorFish]

You get 10 Scions total in the box - that means a 5 man Scion squad if you want to build them to use the Hellrain formation.

[Emicus]

How's this for tactics:

​Put Commissar in Taurox Prime w/Camo netting because it's the only protection he can get.

​Place in good cover for 3+ save.

​Pew pew Missiles and Autocannnon.

​Deep Strike Command and troop Scions, have troop Scions die and repeat.

​Oh and I think we've established that the "stupid stupidguns" are fairly decent at camping out a location, and with only 2 Plasmaguns in the box anyway, perhaps a 50/50 on the Command is worth?

[Master Antaeus]

@WarriorFish: Ack!  You are correct.  Editing.

[march10k]

I do see the utility in spamming these...a 25 point tax (commie) is totally worth it, I may have to try this...I have enough models and commies (except for tauroxes, I'm working on the second of four now...) to spam four of these...four quad-plas command squads DSing to evaporate enemy troops (twinlinking themselves for the win) and four suicide melta squads with WoN....hell, I don't even have to worry about deepstrike mishaps with the meltagunners...they just go into ongoing reserves if they go splat!  That allows for some PRECISION drops...

[cracklingvoice]

From the moment you said "Hooah" in your post, I couldn't take it seriously anymore. I had to say that word dozens of times a week for seven years ...

Your tactics seem pretty legit, and should work against most armies. The only units I can see being a huge issue are MCs with multiple wounds and Terminators (though volume of fire can help with that). And Wraith, damned T6 ...