Writing a 2000 point Primaris List & 40k Lessons

So this week I played my first proper game of new Warhammer 40,000 and just wanted to share my thoughts as my army list evolves over the next several months and also a few things I learnt. This was using my White Scars and the first time I’ve used the new Primaris Marines.

What to take?

So this was relatively simple to me in that I have spent the last few weeks painting up the new Primaris Marines so I knew I wanted them in my list. Also being white scars I wanted some bikes and flyers to keep things ‘fast’ and moving. In addition I wanted to try and get a couple of the new Detachments (battalion and outrider) included so I can maximise my Command points as I had accessed to 26 (26 wtf!?) strategems. My initial 2000 points were as follows:

Captain in Gravis Armour (137)
Captain on Bike (100)
Primaris Librarian (105)
5 Intercessor Squad (100)
5 Intercessor Squad (100)
10 Tactical Squad (130)
3 Attack Bikes Multi Melta (192)
3 Bike Squad (81)
3 Bike Squad (81)
3 Inceptor Squad (180)
5 Hellblaster Squad (165)
Fire Raptor Gunship (418)
Xiphon Interceptor (210)
Total 1999 points (106 Power Level)

I will say the list was written using Battlescribe so any points error is probably from my user error getting used to things!

As I say I just wanted to try a few things out and I managed to start with 2 Detachements for a total of 6 command points (HQ and Fast Attack, HQ and Troops). In addition in terms of Librarian powers / relics etc I just rolled a dice. So what did I learn???

Attack Bikes die! My opponent targeted and killed this unit turn one so never got to see them in action. However next time I think I’ll add one to each Bike Squad as ‘protection’ since they can shoot at different targets anyway.
Librarian powers are strange….the mortal wounds are nice and Psychic Scourge is nice (D6+ leadership if you win it’s D3 mortal wounds) as the Primaris is Ld9 but Smite is closest unit so couldn’t always use it on the unit I wanted.
Bolters are nice but they do nothing against tanks! Yes anything can wound everything but you still need big weapons to wound big targets. Using the Hellblasters it seems S8 is a great tipping point for Strength but also felt like high armour penetration is better than high damage for reliable wound allocation.
Flyers are awesome now! The minimum movement doesn’t impact them as much since they can’t be charged by most troops and have 360 line of sight for all weapons 🙂 The Fire Raptor was awesome (should be at over 400) but the Xiphon was a bit crap and not sure it’s worth half a Fire Raptor and won’t be taking it in a competitive list I think.
Strategems are confusing! There are too many but most you need to build a list around (3 Vindicators) or an army (chapter specific) but even so you need to keep all the cards handy and visible so you remember what you can use, buy the card set!
White Scar warlord trait isn’t great so think I’ll be using the ‘normal’ warlord traits from now on.
White scar chapter Relic is rubbish (+1 casting Smite) but some generic marine ones are great! Think it’s worth spending Command points on ‘Relics of the Chapter’ strategem which lets you take an additional Relic for each CP spent. This boosts your characters for the whole game and can see me using this every game.
Defenders of Humanity is awesome! This ability lets marines have ‘objective secured’ so 1 marine could claim an objective even when it was surrounded by 10 Orcs. This is brilliant with my White Scar bikes (moving 22 inches if needed) or dropping the Inceptors down to claim something.
I need more BIG guns
Orcs are vicious in combat now! Run away!

We only played a few turns and even then it was 8-7 to the Orcs but those few turns taught me loads for next time. I’ll definitely be adding more heavy weapons into the list, dropping the Xiphon, understood that Tactical Squads still have a place, make better movement decisions on the Librarian and read up on relics and strategems!

Stars of the show for me were the Librarian, Hellblasters and Fire Raptor although the big flyer is over 400 points and think I’d rather have something with more punch next time (it does a lot of shots but only kills troops really which I’m ok with).