Theme - Prima Materia

File:Mk4 icon.png Template:Red This mk3 Theme Force has no equivalent in mk4. Nearly the entire Crucible Guard range was put into their Legacy Prime Army, instead, which is both better and worse in some regards.

The Order of the Golden Crucible is jealous of its secrets. Its members have experienced first-hand what can happen when their alchemical and mechanikal innovations fall into the wrong hands. The most technologically advanced divisions of the Crucible Guard are insular and allow no outsiders, lest their secrets be stolen. Wielding the newest and most devastating weapons in the Guard’s arsenal, they bring destruction to enemies of the Order.

Theme Rules

For the core rules on how Theme Forces work, see this article.

Theme Restrictions

An army made use the Magnum Opus theme force can include only the following Crucible Guard and Mercenary models:

• Crucible Guard warcasters
• Non-character warjacks
• Combat Alchemist units
• Dragon's Breath Rocket weapon crew units
• Medium-based Crucible Guard units
• Aurum Legate Alyce Marc
• Crucible Guard Mechanik solos
• Gorman solos
• Hutchuk, Ogrun Bounty Hunter
• Prospero
• Death Archon solos
• Trancer solos
• Crucible Guard battle engines

• Template:Si

  This theme is notable in that it does not have the standard Merc slot.

Requisition Options

Each Requistion Point can be spent on either:

• Three Crucible Guard Mechanik solos
• Two Trancer small-based solos
• One other small- or medium-based Crucible Guard solo with a point cost of 5 or less

Theme Bonuses

1. Vanguard warjacks in this army can use Shield Guard twice per turn.
2. Warjacks and battle engines in this army gain Cutting Edge.

   Template:Cutting Edge

Thoughts on Prima Materia

Prime Materia in a nutshell

This theme force represents the highest level of Crucible technology - secrets that they would not share with other mercenaries or factions, keeping the best for themselves. This concept is shown by the lack of Mercenary options you commonly see in theme forces (note that Partisan mercenaries Gorman & Hutchuk can still be included).

This list lends itself to lower model-count, higher model-quality armies, because that optimises your double-Shield-Guard Vanguard benefit. It also lends itself to upkeep-heavy casters.

With Cutting Edge, note that you can allocate to any warjack in your Template:Control range, but the extra focus will only work on warjacks in your smaller Template:Command range.

Theme weakness

Low model count

With most of your points spent on warjacks, and few units available, it can leave you with a small force that makes it difficult to score scenario zones.

If your opponent can land a few critical debuffs and stop even a few models from participating meaningfully, it can completely kneecap your army.

Also, with fewer models you potentially have fewer attacks, making it harder to deal with infantry swarms or anything else that needs you to roll a lot of dice. You can offset by having "high value" attacks - rather than hinging your strategy on lots of attacks at low MAT/RAT you have fewer attacks with good MAT/RAT.

List Building Tips

Generally Prima Materia lists start a pair of Vanguards then either 1 or 2 heavy warjacks (depending how much over your WJP you want to spend). Once there, however, Prima Materia can really go in any direction you want.

• Prospero: Of special note here is Guard's junior. He does so much to help ALL the jacks in the army (Veteran Leader & Instability Equation both target friendly warjacks, not battlegroup), it would be foolish to not at least consider him in a list running multiple heavies.

Starting a 25 point Brawl list

In 2020.10 Phillip Melvin, one of the LOS authors, put together this list for the Brawlmachine format. It was then updated for the 2021.10 errata. He even wrote about it's playstyle and expanding it beyond 25 points, which you can read here.

Locke1: [+29 WJP]

• Vindicator: [15 pts]
• Vanguard: [10 pts]
• Retaliator: [7 pts]

Prospero: [Free] Template:Grey

• Suppressor: [13 pts]

Ascendant Mentalist: [4 pts]

Crucible Guard Mechanik: [1 pt]

Dragon's Breath Rocket: [4 pts]

Template:Brawl

Caster thoughts

Any caster except maybe Bennent has PM as their preffered theme:

• Mackay: Prima Materia is Mackay's preferred theme because she generally prefers smaller model count armies (because 1 she spends a lot of points on battle engines and 2 she doesn't want a large army that blocks her battle engines).

• Locke: The other Crucible Guard caster who immediately prefers Prima Materia. Locke is a heavy battlegroup caster (or perhaps more accurately heavies battlegroup caster), and she wants to have at least four jacks who can make use of Road to War & Jackhammer (one jack per turn). Your first two Vanguards should not be considered in this four, as they stand a good chance of getting crippled by enemy shooting. Locke really likes a Railless, to act both as a highly mobile way (thanks to Road to War) to contest zones & jam enemy units, but also as a potent screening tool for otherwise soft Guard heavies. All the heavies are amazing with Locke; she runs a five heavy list very effectively.

• Lukas di Morray - Lukas Prima Materia is the ultimate competitive Crucible Guard lists. Among the theme benefit, his feat and juicer mechanik his jacks and himself will swim in focus and he can TK Death Archons around like no tomorrow.

• Gearhart - Using the multi wound infantry along with Decel together with Menatlists and Archons makes for a very bricky melee focused list, while the theme benefit makes sure he can fuel a minimal battlegroup at no strain to his focus, so he can use it to contribute at range personally.

Other

Trivia

• Released with the launch of the CG Faction, 2018.06
• In Alchemy, Prima Materia is the "first material", the secret essence that underpins reality and it is required for all alchemical processes.

Other CG models

• Category: Prima Materia