Bridgehead Strike: The 11th-Edition Guard Tempestus Scion Detachment

Two bullet points, one with a condition attached and one without.

First: if a friendly MILITARUM TEMPESTUS OFFICER model is your WARLORD, friendly TEMPESTUS SCIONS units have BATTLELINE and +1 OC.

That is a real list-building commitment. It costs you the chance to make Lord Solar Leontus or a Cadian Castellan your Warlord, and in exchange your Scions stop being a raiding party and start being troops that hold ground. +1 Objective Control on a unit that arrives on top of an objective is the difference between contesting it and taking it.

Second, with no Warlord condition attached: when a friendly MILITARUM TEMPESTUS unit is selected to shoot, if that unit was set up this turn, that unit's ranged attacks have +1 to hit rolls.

Be precise about that trigger, because it is almost always described as a bonus for arriving from Reserves. It is not. It says set up this turn, which covers a Deep Strike arrival but also covers a unit set up by any other means. And it applies to MILITARUM TEMPESTUS generally rather than only to Scions, so your Tempestus Aquilons and command elements benefit too.

The timing works because of a clause in the army rule people forget: Officers can issue Orders at the end of a phase in which they were set up on the battlefield. So a Tempestus Officer who drops can immediately issue Take Aim! on top of the detachment's own +1 to hit.

Faction Pack v1.2 also improves the underlying datasheet directly, adding Deep Strike to Tempestus Scions' core abilities and changing their pistol Ballistic Skill to 3+, which is what makes the set-up-this-turn clause reliable rather than conditional on a transport.

Three, and unusually for a 1-DP detachment one of them costs 2CP.

• On My Position (end of your opponent's Charge phase). 1CP. Target one friendly engaged REGIMENT unit. Roll one D6 for each enemy unit engaged with your unit: on a 2+ that enemy unit suffers D6 mortal wounds. Then your unit suffers 3D3 mortal wounds.

Read the last sentence before you use it. An average 3D3 is six wounds, which kills most Scion squads outright. This is a sacrifice, not a trade you make casually. It is at its best when the squad is dead next turn anyway and two or more enemy units are engaged with it, because the damage scales with how many are in the pile and the cost to you does not. - Firing Hot (your Shooting). 2CP. When a friendly MILITARUM TEMPESTUS or KASRKIN unit is selected to shoot, its Hot-shot Lascarbines, Hot-shot Lasguns, Hot-shot Laspistols, Hot-shot Marksman Rifles, Hot-shot Volley Guns and Sentry Hot-shot Volley Guns that targeted an enemy unit within 12 inches have +1 Strength and +1 Armour Penetration. The most expensive stratagem here and the one that converts a drop into a kill. The 12 inch condition means it only pays off on the turn you land close, which is the same turn the detachment rule is already giving you +1 to hit. Note it names KASRKIN as well, who get nothing from the detachment rule. - Servo-Designators (your Shooting). 1CP. When a friendly MILITARUM TEMPESTUS unit has shot, select one enemy unit hit by those attacks; friendly MILITARUM TEMPESTUS units' ranged attacks that target that enemy unit have [IGNORES COVER]. Used after your first squad shoots, every following Tempestus unit ignores cover against that target. It is worth most in a list with three or four squads landing on the same objective, and worth little in a list with one.

The sequencing lesson: shoot your cheapest squad first, spend Servo-Designators, then let the expensive squads fire into a target with no cover.

Two, and one of them is the single most commonly miscategorised item in the faction.

• Bombast-class Vox-array (15 pts). MILITARUM TEMPESTUS OFFICER model only. When this model issues an Order, if this unit has the Master Vox wargear ability, this model can issue that Order to up to three different REGIMENT units instead of only one. Note the Master Vox precondition, which is a wargear ability on the unit rather than something the enhancement grants, so check your build. Where it lands is on a Militarum Tempestus Command Squad, and one Order reaching three units is the largest single multiplier the army rule gets outside the Armoured Infantry detachment.
• Priority Drop Beacon (25 pts). MILITARUM TEMPESTUS OFFICER model only. In your first Movement phase, this unit can make an ingress move.

This is an enhancement, not a stratagem. Community write-ups, including our own older copy, describe it as a stratagem that deploys an officer from Reserves on turn one. It is a 25-point Upgrade on your Officer, and what it does is give the unit an ingress move in your first Movement phase. The practical effect is similar but the list-building cost is completely different: you are paying points, not command points, and you are paying them on the model that has to be your Warlord for half the detachment rule to work.

At 25 points it is the most expensive thing in the detachment, and it is only worth it in a list built to arrive early rather than one holding back.

(Points come from the Munitorum Field Manual and move with updates; confirm in the app.)

• [Tempestus Scions](/40k/boxes/warhammer-imperial-guard-tempestus-scions-new) are the unit the whole detachment exists for and the one BATTLELINE and +1 OC lands on. Faction Pack v1.2 improves the datasheet directly: pistol and plasma pistol Ballistic Skill to 3+, and Deep Strike added to core abilities.
• Militarum Tempestus Command Squad is the natural home for both enhancements and the model that makes the Warlord condition worth paying. Faction Pack v1.2 adds Voice of Command to its faction abilities and removes the REGIMENT keyword, which is worth noting because Bombast-class Vox-array targets REGIMENT units.
• [Tempestus Aquilons](/40k/boxes/kill-team-tempestus-aquilons) are the other MILITARUM TEMPESTUS unit that benefits from the set-up-this-turn bonus. The pack rewrites both their Servo-sentry and Precision Drop abilities; Precision Drop now lets them arrive more than 6 inches horizontally from enemies at the cost of not charging that turn.
• [Kasrkin](/40k/boxes/kill-team-kasrkin) are named by Firing Hot even though the detachment rule does not touch them. The pack also rewrites their weapons, deleting the power weapon profile and adding plasma pistol and chainsword profiles.
• [Taurox Prime](/40k/boxes/warhammer-imperial-guard-taurox-prime-new) is the non-Reserves element a pure drop list badly needs, holding the midboard while your Scions are still in the sky.
• [Valkyrie](/40k/boxes/warhammer-imperial-guard-valkyrie-new) is the thematic delivery vehicle, and one whose datasheet the pack changes substantially: Move 14 inches, Objective Control none, and the AIRCRAFT keyword removed.
• [Cadian Shock Troops](/40k/boxes/astra-militarum-cadian-shock-troops) give cheap board presence. Scions in the sky are not screening your deployment zone, and a pure Bridgehead list can lose on objectives while winning every firefight.

This is the detachment with the fewest constraints in the faction, so the question is which problem you want the other 2 DP to solve.

• [Combined Arms](/40k/armies/astra-militarum/detachments/combined-arms) (2 DP) is the cleanest. Scions are REGIMENT, so Born Soldiers gives them [LETHAL HITS] against infantry-type targets in the same shooting phase the detachment rule is giving them +1 to hit. The two rules stack on one unit with no conditions to track.
• [Steel Hammer](/40k/armies/astra-militarum/detachments/steel-hammer) (2 DP) is the widest threat spread available. A super-heavy demands an answer in the centre while your Scions arrive somewhere else, and both detachments can hold their centrepiece in Reserves.
• [Siege Regiment](/40k/armies/astra-militarum/detachments/siege-regiment) (2 DP) stacks best on a single target. Incendiary Bombardment strips the Benefit of Cover from a distant unit for a whole battle round; drop onto that unit and you have cover stripped, +1 to hit and Firing Hot's Strength boost all landing at once.
• [Mechanised Assault](/40k/armies/astra-militarum/detachments/mechanised-assault) (2 DP) gives you two ways of arriving. Scions delivered by Taurox get Armoured Fist's +1 to Wound; Scions dropping get Bridgehead Strike's +1 to Hit. The same models are buffed by different halves of the list depending on how you deploy them.
• [Designation Force](/40k/armies/astra-militarum/detachments/designation-force) (1 DP) costs 2 DP together and leaves a point spare. Infiltrating Sentinels mark targets before your Scions commit, so you drop with information rather than hope.

It also pairs legally with Armoured Infantry, Hammer of the Emperor, Recon Element and Abhuman Auxiliaries. There is no Guard detachment it cannot be taken with.

Take it if you like precise, aggressive play and can stomach a fragile army that lives or dies on target selection, or if you simply own a lot of Scions and want them to be the point rather than a footnote.

Be clear-eyed about the costs. The BATTLELINE grant demands a Militarum Tempestus Officer Warlord, which constrains the rest of your list. Scions are expensive per wound and punish positioning errors harshly, and a mistimed drop can lose you a quarter of your army for nothing. And the detachment adds no defence at all: every rule here is about arriving and shooting.

Sample gameplan: pair with Combined Arms (2 DP). Make a Tempestus Officer your Warlord, give him Priority Drop Beacon so he is on the board in your first Movement phase with the BATTLELINE grant live, and keep two or three Scion squads in Reserves. When they land, shoot the cheapest squad first, spend Servo-Designators to strip cover from the target, then fire the rest with +1 to hit from the detachment, [LETHAL HITS] from Born Soldiers, and Firing Hot on the squad inside 12 inches.

For the fundamentals underneath all of it, read the Astra Militarum army guide.