Using Primarchs

[Brother Kraskor]

Hello fraters!

 

I am keen to hear your experiences on using Primarchs. I've seen them used in ways ranging from the 'traditional' (Spartan, 10x legion termies) to the minimalist (just running around on their own!). How do you employ your Primarch?

 

- What delivery system? Spartan? Deep strike (Warmonger or native)? Footslog?

- What accompaniment? Full ten-man legion-specific termies? Command squad? On their own?!

- What target? Enemy Primarch presumably, but in their absence what else? Enemy terminators, or do you dare tangle with Leviathans etc.?

- To what success? Do they ever make their points back? Do they ever completely flop? What's the craziest thing they've ever managed?

 

Thanks for looking!

[arnesh88]

Depends on the Primarch and the legion. I'm sure others will give their input, but here's mine for Vulkan

- You can either put him in the classic Firedrake Party Bus

- I personally like him either on his own or attached to Pyroclasts. He matches their speed, can fit in a land raider with 7 of them, brings melee punch

- He's good against anything but Primarchs. Not the weakest combat primarch, but without brutal, WS 7, and Initiative 5, he's going to be tough to do damage before falling

- I see him as a Contemptor Dreadnought+. Same Toughness, 3+ invul save, and eternal warrior makes him difficult to take down. Also helps that even though he doesn't have Brutal, he does have Armourbane and Instant Death, which is good against anything that doesn't have Eternal Warrior. So him in a squad acts as a tank for them, and by himself can be risky, but can also draw a lot of fire from your opponent that may or may not be effective. If ran on his own, probaly want him to move behind a durable vehicle or have him run 12" from cover to cover.

- Not bad shooting, so can snipe with his Furnace's Heart key models from a unit.

Edited July 19 by arnesh88

[MARK0SIAN]

I’ve run Sanguinius in a few different ways. You can run him in the traditional Terminator/Spartan party bus but that sacrifices one of his biggest assets which is his speed. 
 

In my experience it’s better to run him with another jump pack unit that can keep up. I’ve run him with a squad of Angels Tears and with a Squad of Dawnbreakers. The Angels Tears were interesting because they packed a decent ranged punch that a lot of Primarch retinues tend to lack. They did fold pretty quickly in combat though.

 

The Dawnbreakers were better in combat but even they tended to struggle against Terminator retinues as they can’t really instant death them and when the surviving terminators get to swing back they kill the Dawnbreakers pretty easily. 
 

In first edition my favourite way to run him was with a blob of 20 assault marines, all with combat shields but in 1st the combat shields used to grant a 5++ rather than the 6++ they do now so they had more staying power, even against much more elite units. 
 

The people I play with tend to only run Primarchs when we arrange it in advance or it’s an apocalypse scale game so I’ve only really run him against other Primarchs and their units so I don’t have much experience with him against other kinds of units.

[arnesh88]

Agreed for the most part that I also only tend to run primarchs when someone else brings a primarch or we agree beforehand. I do have one opponent that I will bring Vulkan when he doesn't bring Perturabo because the list he has is accidentally way too good (he collected these models in 1e). Loyalist Iron Warriors (can't take advantage of Weight of Duty warlord trait) with Forge Lord/Thallax, Scorpiuses, Iron Circle, Lascannons Devs, several Dreadnoughts with the Tyrant of Dodekathon warlord trait (remove a piece of terrain). It's too much for my short-ranged army to handle, so I have no choice but to bring Vulkan. Still tweaking the army because he still wins handily 80% of the time.

Edited August 5 by arnesh88

[Gorgoff]

 

, several Dreadnoughts with the Tyrant of Dodekathon warlord trait (remove a piece of terrain). 

I don't know if that helps but that warlord trait doesn't remove a terrain piece. That terrain just doesn't provide a cover save anymore but it still can block like of sight of vig enough.