Age of Darkness-Warhammer 30k/2.0 Tactics/Imperialis Militia

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Why Play Imperial Militia

  • Pros
    • Insane customisation. This list covers nearly everything from Squats, to Mutants, Mech Guard stand-ins, Death World Cavalry,


  • Cons
    • Low Leadership everywhere. Which gets even worse when you factor in the inherent rules of the Militia subtype. Meaning that when you break, you break hard and often.
    • Third Line vehicles are more easily penetrated. You fo

Special Rules

Provenances of War

This is where the modelling opportunities for this army come from. Your Force Commander can purchase up to two Provenances of War. While their cost seems rather low, they can all massively impact the rest of your army, and can radically change the army build and the options you can take. Some Provenances lock you out of certain things or are mutually exclusive with one another, but some also allow units to buy their own unique options.

  • Warrior Elite:
  • Legacy of the Great Crusade:
  • Clanfolk Levy:
  • Gene Crafted:
  • Cyber Augmetics:
  • Alchem-Jackers:
  • Survivors of a Dark Age:
    • Void Jumpers:
  • Armoury of the Old Night:
  • Feral Warriors:
  • Kinfolk Helots:
  • Abhuman Muster:
  • Debased Rabble: (Traitors only)
  • Tainted Flesh: (Traitors only)
  • Ogryn Conscripts:
  • Industrial Stronghold:
  • Unending Hordes:


Wargear

Ranged Weapons

This army has staggering variety of less than staggering guns, allowing you precise control over the balance and type of your firepower to affordability.

Unit Analysis

HQ

  • Force Commander:
  • Discipline Master Cadre:
  • Imperial Militia Command Cadre:
  • Rogue Psyker (Traitors only)

Troops

  • Militia Infantry Squad:
  • Inducted Levy Squad: 20-50 conscripts
  • Militia Grenadier Squad:
  • Fire Support Squad: your heavy weapon squads, just like with imperial guard, but as Troops choices with no platoon tax. Unfortunately as support squads they cannot be compulsory choices. They come in units of 5-10 teams and have the full range of guard weapons, including heavy stubbers and multilasers. This unit has awesome potential.
  • Reconnaissance Squad:

Dedicated Transports

Elites

  • Ogryn Brute Squad: 3-10 Ogryns with big sticks, flak armour
  • Imperialis Auxilia Medicae Detachment:
  • Field Gun Artillery Battery:

Fast Attack

  • Arvus Lighter: Only marginally better than the travesty of their 40k incarnation in that they can take guns and use them properly; this makes them like flying razorbacks with twice the transport capacity. You can take them as dedicated transports for grenadiers and to be honest, it might be worth it here if you can stomach forking out for a resin box when you can have so many other things (why are you buying a Arvus Lighter this is Militia and Cults you could use a Tau Devilfish if you want). Since the Arvus won't last long with the amount of Dakka that 30k brings to the table. You may as well go full bore and shell out points for the twin linked Lascannons and the Armored Cockpit. Also should be considered, outside of Survivors of the Dark Age, the only non super heavy transport.
  • Auxilia Sentinel Scout Squadron: almost exactly the same as the guard option, three to six chicken walkers with a heavy weapon, no plasma cannons but you can take a multi-melta. You can also take combat blades granting them +1 attack, but taking open topped AV10 walkers into melee is still generally not a good idea. By contrast, their ability to scout (and therefore outflank), makes them ideal for tank hunting.
  • Thunderbolt Heavy Fighter: If you have one, field it as these are the business. They start off at BS4 which means their considerable firepower is going to come to bear more reliably, which now includes Kinetic Piercer missiles, which while only S6, are AP2, armourbane and heat-seeking which makes them twin linked against other flyers. While you could swap them for hellstrike missiles, you'd be an idiot to do so because of the drawbacks of the ordnance rule, but if you wanted more ground attack then sunfury missiles can be bought which are AP3 large blast and blinding but get hot. For added goodies, they can buy strafing run, so your nose guns hit things on the ground with rerollable 2s, and a flare shield which reduced incoming firepower by -1 strength.
  • Terrax Pattern Termite Assault Drill: You get this five points cheaper than Solar Auxilia for the same standard loadout and 15 points cheaper than Legiones Astartes who have to buy heavy flamers separately. What you get is an underground drop-pod capable of carrying 12 models and arriving via special deep-strike, scattering a 5" blast marker, automatically avoiding impassable terrain and engaged units and then causing an automatic S10 AP- hit on anything else it scatters onto, then forcing the survivors to move out of the way so you can fit the giant drill who can then hose down the nearby units with heavy flamers. It is not an assault vehicle, so anything that deploys will be standing around waiting for the inevitable counter charge, unfortunately your melee units such as Levy squads need not apply since their minimum squad size is too high, and Ogryns are bulky and are not allowed. Because your shooting units tend to be quite fragile at close ranges maybe save it for some disposable short ranged squads like a shotgun Recon squad with a demo charge. Otherwise stick an Enginseer inside to keep it fixed and provide some nasty fire support with the tech thralls when he disembarks.
    • It is one of the few units that can perform a turn 1 deep strike thanks to the Subterranean Assault rule, though you can only deploy half (rounding up) of these units on the first turn. Unless you play Survivors of the Dark Age you will be unlikely able to deploy more than two in the first turn because they are only Fast Attack choices but it still can be good for pushing enemy units out of position. If you do play Survivors and take them as dedicated transports for your grenadiers then you could pull off massed deep strikes the likes of which only an orbital assault Astartes army can achieve.

Heavy Support

  • Rapier Battery: Your entry level artillery unit. You start out with quad multilasers which have all the sixes. You get six twin-linked shots at S6 AP6 at a range of 36" (6x6), so is very good at taking out infantry. You can swap this for a quad heavy bolter for free, which would be better against GEQ units due to the superior AP value. If you're looking for anti-tank then you can buy laser destroyers, which are 48" S9 AP1 twin-linked Ordnance, which are excellent even considering the the shitiness of the men firing them. If you want to annoy your opponent, then the most expensive option is the quad-mortar (thudd gun), which fires of four pinning + shell shock S5 small blasts each, so a battery of them will pepper the battlefield. While they may have poor AP and average strength for a heavy weapon, they can consume a chunk of time to resolve and give you a psychological advantage over your opponent as he gets frustrated with so many templates and wants you dead. Overall Rapiers are good and cheap, but at only Ld 6 and flimsy guardsmen crew they are going to fall over if something looks at them funny.
    • Regarding longevity, remember that if the unit falls back, they abandon the gun which means it is permanently lost even if they regroup later. So morale boosting upgrades/provenances become your main priority. Don't worry so much about armour plating them, because the gun already has T7 and a 3+ save.
      • Funnily, "Cult Horde" isn't as terrible for them because the quad laser/bolters can still snap fire twin linked, so can still potentially hurt something, yet because they are Artillery they are prohibited from declaring a charge, so can remain safely in position.
      • "Alchem Jackers" can be a godsend, since it pins the unit when they suffer shooting morale checks instead of running away, meaning you don't automatically lose the gun, and still be able to shoot with quad guns on the same turn by snapfiring. While this has little benefit in melee, if your rapier gets caught up in close combat it's going to be dead soon anyway.
  • Heavy Ordnance Battery: Immobile Earthshaker guns each with 4-8 crewmen who are subject to your provenance. If you're taking these hopefully your army has good leadership modifying rules since the crew only have LD 6 and will abandon the gun if they have to fall back. Either keep these WELL out of the way, or bump their leadership as high as you can. You swap the Earthshakers for Medusa Siege Guns, which is more cost for the same risk, but you gain the option of buying Breacher Shells.
    • Breacher Shells are S10 AP1 Armorbane. When combined with the regular ordinance blasts of the Medusa, these batteries are one of your best sources of anti-tank.
    • Unlike the rapier batteries, there is no way to snap fire with these guns, being both "Blast" and "Ordnance". So pinning the unit will effectively neutralise it. Taking "Cult Horde" with them makes you an idiot.
    • Because as long as the gun is alive everyone is T7, but only the closest model tanks all the shots, consider an Aegis defense line to shield your artillery.
  • Carnodon Strike Squadron: Predators on a budget, they are only BS3 and have AV12 on the front, but at 60 points each when their Heavy Bolter/Flamer sponsons are free you can fit a whole lot of dakka into a small list without having to buy any additional upgrades for them. They come in squadrons so you can scale up to suit your points allowance, and you can replace those sponsons for autocannons to have the same S7 coverage all around. There isn't a whole lot to mention here, since the tank itself is nothing spectacular and has few options for upgrades. The main draw is their value.
    • Yes, the actual model comes with the option to swap for multi-lasers, volkites and lascannons, but Imperial Militia don't have those options. Autocannon turrets with bolter/flamer/autocannon sponsons only but at least that stops the unit from becoming a points sink if you invest too much into them. If you want more guns on a bigger budget then consider Leman Russes instead.
  • Battle Tank Attack Squadron: Leman Russes, everyone's favourite, chosen from the vanilla, annihilator, exterminator, demolisher and vanquisher flavours. They've only got access to Heavy Bolter and Flamer sponsons (which is still better than the Solar Auxilia, who get no sponsons at all), but hilariously they can replace the hull gun with a multilaser, which might be a good idea if you're taking an ordnance tank and just want a gun for snap firing, or even as a makeshift AA gun.
  • Malcador Heavy Tank: bigger Leman Russes, also a fast super heavy vehicle that is not a Lord of War. You can upgrade it to AV14 on the front if you sacrifice the Fast rule, but you can also take a Flare shield which applies all over and is boosted against templates. These used to be great tanks, but after the latest FAQ removed super heavy from their profile (what the FUCK Anuj????) they are now, unfortunately, pretty useless unless. You could take something like full lascannons to circumvent this problem and keep them cheap, but it's still a long way from the high strenght ordinance blasts.
  • Mutant Spawn: (Tainted Flesh only) oh shi- GLARBLBLBLBL... Ahem slightly lesser than the 40k chaos version, possibly because they started out as humans and not space marines. They don't get access to marks and have only I2, however these ones have IWND and Hammer of Wrath as well as being 5 points cheaper on a per model basis, albeit with a higher startup cost like everything in HH, but you can take them in squads of ten which makes them a very potent prospect in melee. Their mutation table has also been heavily modified; taking effect from the beginning of the game and cannot be changed. Ones give them only a 5+ armour save, but at least it applies out of combat. Twos make them reroll 1s for random attacks, bleh. Threes give them Rending, so hope for this one and you can possibly have a big squad of these tearing through virtually anything.

Lord of War

  • Auxilia Baneblade: - Though outclassed by the Legion Fellblade, the Baneblade is still a nasty proposition to face. Sporting a Baneblade cannon, Autocannon, Demolisher Cannon and a twin-linked heavy bolter. With the option of two/four Lascannons and two/four more twin-linked heavy bolters (the sponsons don't come as standard here) optional pintle mounts, AND optional Hunter-killer missile, it is a rolling fortress of death.
  • Auxilia Stormhammer: - Taking Dakka to a logical extreme, the Stormhammer is less a superheavy and more a rolling fortress bristling with guns. Its hull weapon is a TL Battle Cannon, and its main gun is a S9 AP2 cannon with shred and pinning. With the options to take a pintle-mounted multilaser or heavy flamer, up to 4 HK missiles(!), a coaxial multilaser, a hull lascannon on top of the battle cannons, and six sponsons, all of which are armed with multilasers by default (making it C.S. Goto's dream tank) but can be swapped out for heavy bolters, heavy flamers, or lascannons (and the first two options are free), it can take on more targets at once than any other superheavy. (The sponsons are switched out individually, so feel free to mix and match however you like.) and the whole tank can buy targeters giving it a nifty BS4. In short, the Stormhammer is your best bet for a versatile superheavy that can fit any situation that you can think of.

Fortifications

Allies

A few notes about the list, since it interacts with other armies in different ways depending upon what Provenances of War they have taken.

  • If they've taken Tainted Flesh or Cult Horde, then they cannot ally with Loyalist forces, though they may count Chaos Daemons as "Fellow Warriors".
  • Cyber-Augmetics may count Mechanicum armies as "Sworn Brothers"
  • Abhuman Helots only count Space Marine and Solar Auxilia armies as "Distrusted Allies"

Agents

Agents are also models useable by any HH army.

  • Expeditionary Navigator: For those people who bought the model at an open day, Forgeworld released the rules for these guys for free on their website. For those that don't have the model, you can make/proxy your own (the Imperial Guard Astropath works well). He is one of the first Agents on the allies matrix represented in Betrayal, though he can just be taken as an HQ slot. Essentially has the statline of a Conscript Guardsman, but comes with an Archaeotech pistol and the Aetherlabe staff, which allows his unit to fire snap-shots at a Deep striking unit arriving within 12" of him, or at full BS if it arrived by a Conjuration psychic power. He also causes Fear, which can be funny in crusade lists due to ATSKNF not existing. Finally, he also has Navigator powers, which are like 6th Ed psychic powers but don't use Warp Charges and can only use one per turn on a successful Ld test, failure pins himself and his unit.
    • Lidless Stare: THE SHIT - shoot the flamer template, any infantry hit by it must pass an Initiative test or suffer Instant Death. Which means most Space Marines touched are dead 33.3% of the time, Mechanicum infantry 50% of the time or better. Completely useless against bikes, jetbikes, and monsters, so YMMV.
    • Warp Prescience: Enemies shooting at the Navigator (or his unit) suffers -1BS.
    • Aetheric Disruption: All psykers on the table (friend or foe) roll THREE dice when determining what happens with Perils of the Warp and discard the lowest for the purposes of the result. Given this was written with 6th Ed in mind, it's not entirely clear whether that means any associated Ld test to mitigate Perils OR taking the two highest results of the Perils and applying BOTH, which means psykers are fucked, since that almost guarantees two wounds, unless that psyker rolls a 6 and turns into an unstoppable machine of death; it would be totally better if he discarded the highest die.

Agents of the Emperor

These are agents only usable by Loyalist players.

The Knights Errant

For ALL Knights-Errant, one very VERY important rule to remember is their Oath of Moment. Which means they have to pick a particular objective in order to be fielded; some of the easier ones, like ending the game in the enemy deployment zone, or ensuring an allied character survives, grant his army an extra victory point if he obtains it. Other, more difficult ones include personally slaying the enemy warlord in a challenge or making sure an enemy Primarch is killed (which he does not have to do personally, but since you are playing Milita this might be quite difficult to do), which nets his side three extra points. However, failing to complete his chosen objective means the side that took him cannot win at all, and can only settle for a draw.

  • Nathaniel Garro: The first of the Knights-Errant. A three-wound Eternal Warrior, kitted out for challenges though he might struggle going toe-to-toe with some of the bigger named characters or a dangerously equipped Praetor. He is still meatier than your Force Commander will ever be, and you'll get the sense that he'll be able to stick it out long enough that he might just come out on top. He's not really a force multiplier the same way as the other Knights-Errant are, so consider if you really want Garro in your army, since you'll need to pad him out with a decent squad, Ogryns only really seem to fit the bill here.
  • Tylos Rubio: The first recruit of Garro. A Mastery Level 2 psyker that can cast from divination and telekinesis... which is to say divination, since Echoes of Fate allows him to re-roll divination tests and any un-used warp charges can automatically become +1 strength each. Aside from those two special rules, he's just a mastery level 2 KE for 35 points less than a normal one. He's a solid choice, though you cannot change his loadout the same way as you could with a unnamed Knight Errant.
  • Knight-Errant: A.K.A. Build your very own special snowflake™. A 2-wound space marine with a bunch of nice gear. He'll never stand toe-to-toe with the big bad-boys of the setting, but hey, you are playing Militia and Cults right? There is an awful lot you can do with a Knight Errant, but for those who came over from the Legion list bear in mind that your synergies are somewhat reduced. Nartheciums only apply to Legiones Astartes units so won't help your poor defenseless levy squads (you could have Medics anyway) and giving them a Jump Pack is kinda pointless since no other squad can Deep Strike along with them. But he DOES have Preferred Enemy (Traitors) so he can provide quite a significant boost to oversized militia squads, can take a servo-arm to fix things without spending an Elites slot and can ALSO become a Librarian Consul. This means that Loyalists can actually take a psyker without having to resort to allies, and also because he's a Legiones Astartes character -but not a unique named one- he is also eligible for a wide array of Psyarkana upgrades to fit your preference. This can be done all at the same time to make a swiss-army-knife character. Add in the option to swap his super-bolter for a sniper-rifle or a combi-weapon and you have a damn versatile support element. Go nuts!
    • He has a few other cool rules too: like being able to Deep Strike without scatter, and cause his opponents to snap fire at him during the following turn, or count as disordered when charging him. If you don't want to attach him to a squad (and we don't blame you), deploying via his Falsehood is a perfectly adequate way to go.

Tactics

This army pretty much allows you to do whatever you want, although generally you'll be looking at infantry supported by armour and artillery. A large factor in how your army will play is what Provenances you take. Abhuman Helots, Survivors of the Dark Age, Cyber Augmentics and Tainted Flesh will all help improve the survivability of your infantry, while Warrior Elite, Alchem-Jackers and Abhuman Helots with Discipline Collars will make your guys less likely to run away so are highly recommended if you're not running Grenadier-only troops. There are a lot of Provenances that can improve your close combat game; Gene-Crafted, Feral Warriors, Cult Horde, Tainted Flesh and Alchem-Jackers with Frenzon all help you out in melee, although it's of questionable use in a Marine-oriented environment. However, only one Provenance, Survivors of a Dark Age, increases your range-game to any degree, which makes no sense at all considering that even with these buffs you'll get massacred by dedicated Marine units (however mind that it's not supposed to allow your guys to go 1-1 with Marines, it's there to take it from a 3-1 fight to a 2-1 fight; use that knowledge properly).

Your advantages include how cheap you are compared to other armies (seriously, even your Leman Russes are cheaper by 10 points), the fact that you can buff your infantry fairly easily with Provenances and Medicae Orderlies and the amount of armour and heavy firepower that you can bring to the field with artillery, Rapiers, Heavy Support Squads and Leman Russes, all of which are cheaper that anyone else's. However, this cheapness is balanced out by Provenances of War, making it not as spammy as it may initially seem.

Basically, what you want to do with these guys is find a theme to forge a narrative on, and then base it round that. Want to have an army of clones that are little more than meat shields for your Dark Mechanimum army? Tainted Flesh and Cyber-Augmented are right up your alley. Want your humies to mimic beakies? Take Survivors of the Dark Age and load your Grenadier Squad up into Rhinos. However, as for competitive play it's not that good unless you really min-max your army, so don't expect a lot out of them.

Also of serious consideration is whether or not you want Ultrasmurf allies to bring along Invictarus Suzerains to gain +1Ld to all your guys within 12" as well as bringing some hardier troops and better CC ability. Not compulsory but a good idea.

Building your Army

USE YOUR DAMN IMAGINATION! Want an army of Felinids? Abhuman Helots and Gene-Crafted. Only Renegades & Heretics have more customization. This army is about as customizable as they are but, they're less diverse both in the base units available and being restricted by the biggest source of customization being army wide. The units can take a startling rainbow of standard weapons, but like a rainbow, many of the options are almost the same. Its entirely possible (albeit better for friendly counts as games) to proxy a fantasy army, such as the Empire or possibly Skaven. Look at the stuff available on GW's website. Empire, Elf, Guard, Skaven, (some) Skitarii, even ORKS (with some converting) can work! Since many tournaments ban forgeworld anyway, look to other model sites if it suits your fancy. All of it works, all of its totally fluff friendly. WoC? Feral worlders. Infinity stuff? Technological advanced enclave. A WW2 model range? You get the idea. If you ever wanted to make an army thats truly "you", a one of a kind masterpiece, et cetera, this is for you. You may not exactly win, but you sure as hell wont be forgotten. Hell, make your army a bunch of chicks with swag armour and do a proto-sisters of battle army. Then piss people off and give them gene-crafted for Sister Marines, alchem-jackers with frenzon for RED RAGE sisters, or cyber sex gals. If you're using Survivors of the Dark Age and decent armor, why not make an army of Arbites? Survivors of the Dark Age and Abhuman Helots work for an army of Squats. Any combination of Tainted Flesh, Abhuman Helots, Feral Warriors and Cult Horde could give you an army of Beastmen. Want something vaguely Calibanite? Warrior Elite and SotDA works well to that end.


Warhammer 30,000 Tactics Articles
General Tactics
Imperium
Chaos
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