Space Marines-List building questions

[Duke]

My suggestions are simple, change the hq, (even though the chappie termie model is sick!) I would also combat squad the tacticals and change the rhinos for razorbacks. Razrohqcks are great and give you a lot of options with the simple TL hvy bolters

Duke

[Valhallan42nd]

An army I played against did the following @2500:

Pedro and Assault Termies in a LRC, Two tacs in a rhino, two assault squads in a Rhino, Vindicators and scouts with powerfist in a LSS.

Everything move forward 12, the scouts shot, and I pretty much ignored them since I had bigger fish to fry. Then next turn, they all moved forward 12 again. Nothing could assault, except for the scouts from the open topped storm (The LRC was blocked by the rhinos/storm to provide a mobile coversave). Pedro gave them all a bonus attack from his perch in the land raider. They tied up my mm attack bikes gunning for the LRC. Most of the scouts died, but the LRC got to run rampant in my lines.

It's not a bad use of 150 some points.

[MarshalAdamar]

Are Scouts worth it? What's their role?
Scouts are tricky. You can use them as front line troops against certain armies like guard where even your scouts are far better than guardsmen.

Mostly Scouts are used to snatch objectives or hit vulnerable units with out flank.

As for the storm, I think that a couple of those would be great for swooping in and snatching objectives late in the game.

A use for biker scouts eludes me too. Though the booby trap thing is pretty cool VS weak troops.

Great use is to put the booby traps in a piece of cover that holds your dev squad, so when the baddies come to get them they get blowed up real good. Same goes for sniper squads.


How many Tactical Squads
6 space marine TAC squads is WAY too many.

TAC squads are stupidly resilient, and with “And they shall know no fear” even if they break they just regroup and come back. So a little goes a long way. I would look for 2-3 (leaning towards 3) just in case.

Your TAC squads are going to roll up supporting the “assault” element to help blow away either whatever is left of a squad or soften up a target for a dedicated assault unit.

The Land Raider
Terminators should be used sparingly (IMO) 5 terminators will get killed way faster than you think they will.

The Crusader is a unit with one true calling. That being hauling massive amounts of troops to a battle and putting them in the enemies face.

As for Hurricane bolter, it depends. But think of this, USUALLY you can only hit any given unit with ONE flame storm cannon and it only has about an 8” range so until your on top of your enemy you can’t use it. The Hurricane bolter puts out 6 twin linked shots for about 5 hits a round and 2.5 wounds on MEQs. Or 5 wounds if you’re with in 12” and that’s not too shabby.

Now consider you find say a unit of IG vets out in the open after their ride gets toasted. Even at 24” you get 5 hits, 3-4 DEAD plus the assault cannon for another 3 dead. And with in 12” you get the whole squad. So it depends, its not designed to mow down T4 guys with a 3+ save. But it can do it.

But to get the most from the Crusader you have to really be either Black Templars (creators of the Crusader) OR space wolves both of them can take 15+ man units

For regular Marines its best used to take large units of Terminators to the enemy. The Crusader can hold 8 terminators and 8 assault terminators = ouch

The Redeemer and the regular Raider can only take 6 The Redeemer is king against horde armies or vs. MEQ if you can get it into range.

The difference between the Redeemer and the Crusader is what is there secondary role (the first role is to move as fast as possible and drop off their cargo.) But after that you should have a plan for what they are going to do.

The Crusaders secondary function is to move 12” and have the PotMs fire a flame storm cannon. I say this because it’s the weapon with the most “umph”

Where as the regular Raider is best suited to sit still and blast away.

Here’s an idea, after the Raider has dropped off its cargo have it go and sit on an objective. Then when your out flanking scouts arrive have them run over and hop in. The Raider can sit still and blast away with two las cannons AND a multi melta AND some heavy bolter! While you’re scoring units eat cucumber sandwiches in comfort.

And so long as no on scores a wrecked or destroyed result on the vehicle you own that objective


Space Marine Heavy Support
Vindicators are pretty great, but you have to watch the side armor 11. With all the out flanking units out there a unit of flanking sentinels with auto cannons will ruin your day. (I know) But S10 AP1 is just gross. It will insta kill Ork war bosses, IC of all kinds, wounds just about anything on a 2+ and ignores all armor saves but Invul.

The down side is the range, if you have to move up and get the enemy you had better be deployed on the front line.

Whirl wind is good and CHEAP! 80 pts (I think) And you can have a large blast that wounds marines on a 3 or fire the large S4 blast with no cover saves. (Think about that and a unit guard in some ruins) Good against hordes where you can’t really miss.

Predators are a good cheap source of fire power rather than a dev squad heavy bolters X2 and an auto cannon. That’s a lot of shooting.

If you’re thinking about an all las predator (Don’t) just take a land raider.

HQ - Characters or Vanilla
SC are a matter of choice. They are very expensive Lysander will buy you just about a whole TAC squad. So if you take on you better tailor your whole army around the abilities they grant you or they’