Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Noobs guide to Space Marine Troops

This should be the shortest of the noob guides, Not much here really.

Tactical Marines
The back bone of every marine force. 3+ armour, free upgrades, do everything, customisable killing machines. I personally would recoment 10 for every 500 points in a list.
Always take 10 men so you can get free weapons, Combat squad for objective missions, keep them at 10 man for kill points. Rhinos and razors are great, so are drop pods. Keep the offence moving, the defense stationary and dont jump out of transports unless your sure you can kill an entire unit. I have run 60 Tactical marines at 1200 and 2000 points, they are tough and can deal a surprising amount of damage,

As for upgrades:
Close Combat
- Power fist, Nice, but expensive, see if you have points left over first. Krak grenades just as good against vehicles and tac marines are not assault troops
- Power weapon - Forget it. To expensive and see above
- Combi weapons - FLamer is ok, rest are 10 points for a 2/3 chance of hitting
- Plasma Pistol - ussually only fired once. Don't take unless you have a plan. Good to combo with the plasma gun

Specials
Flamer - Free, decent infantry killer
Melta Gun - cheap, ap 1, assault. This is a nice gun.
Plasma gun - Kills infantry, takes out most vehicles on the rear or even side armour, 2 shots.

Heavies
- Missile - The default choice. Nice flexible, but something of a half measure
- Heavy botler- On paper the missile is better, in practice an average of 2 str 5 ap 4 hits is nice. And they look cool.
- Multimelta - I have tried to like this weapon. I took 3 to the last tournament and fire 1 shot. They lack range but are deadly when you do shoot, better suited for vehicles
- Plasma Cannon - Devestating but unreliable. Don't depend on 1 if your going to take them take 2 or 3. Once again this is not the best for Tac Marines. Better suited to vehicles and devestators
- Las cannons - The biggest of the big. cheap, nasty tank and hq killer. I prefer them on dreds and preds but they are not a bad option for a defensive squad.

Builds
Chainsword & boltpistol sgt, Flamer and missile launcher - This is the basic, Cheap, flexible, assaults, kills infantry, tank hunts, it does everything to some degree but is not exceptional at any one option.
Powerfist, Melta gun, Multi Melta - Tank and Walker hunter.
Plasma Pistol, Plasma Gun, Anything - Heavy infantry light vehicle killer
Many, many more.

Scouts
I'm in two minds about scouts. I love the infintrate and outflank, I love the sniper rifles, heavy bolter and close combat options. I hate the BS 3. I know that bs 3 ios fairly standard and only marine players would have issues with it but it still annoys me. I set up my snipers to cover an area, They line up to shoot the enemy, 10 shots, 5 hits, and if your lucky 3 wounds. 1-2 of which are saved. Spamming does boost the effectiveness but then your stuck with stationary troops.

The best uses I have foundare: infiltrate somewhere anoying, take pot shots and hope the enemy shoots them instead of something you actually want to live; Out flank, Krak grenade a tank, hope the enemy spends a turn killing them instead of something else.

Upgrades
- Snipers - Good range, thats it. average annoyance unit.
- Shot guns - assault weapons, fire at rear armour and then assault, you dont really want to assault infantry
- Power fist, close combat weapons - Nasty. run on, punch a tank or maybe 2. get shot to hell. but its 100 points
- Missile - It will miss half the time. Unless you run tellion not really worth the 10 points
- Heavy bolter -Ok with snipers, but scouts are a throw away unit so you really want to minimise points
- Camo Cloaks - this is irritating. Till they get flamed, or assaulted, if you can't take out a scout unit with cloaks your list has a serious hole in it.
- Tellion - I know I am in the minority but I think he is to expensive for what he does. 2 shot sniper rifle still wounds half the time, even if both shots almost always hit.

The missile always hitting will reliably take out transports. But Telion +3 snipers +1 missile = 135 point. The same a dred with a twin linked las cannon, while a dred with pair of twin linked auto cannons or a predator with a twin linked las cannon is cheaper and will survive better, The heavy bolter, Wow you killed 3 guys, at best, unless your oponnents army is MEQ in which case you may have killed 1 guy.

Keep them cheap, simple and expect them to either die horribly or be completely ignored.


The can count as troops

- Bikes - If your captain is on a bike you can take 5+ model bike squads as troops. Bike armies are cool and tough to kill. Fast moving T5 marines with 2 specail weapons, Also you can add attack bikes for a multimelta or heavy bolter you can fire on the move. Great. So go buy some. Captain+4 5 model squads comes in roughly at $450 Australian. Great idea crushed bythe cost. I still may eventually splash out on this, and a command squad on bikes is awesome. If your a noob and want something fun you may consider this. I may eventually as well.

- Sterngaurd - If you take Pedro and give up combat tactics Stern Guard count as scoring units. ot exactly troops, will expand later. One of my favorite units. A weapon for everything but make sure you give themtransport and something they can use against vehicles. A coule of combi plasma's is fine. Combo with drop pods and librarians for more killing power. As far as sing them for troops you have 2 options
- Infantry/Transport killers to wipe objectives clean and take them over, Flamers, Heavy Flamers, Plasma
- Defensive builds with 2 heavy weapons - Multi Meltas, Missiles, plasma cannons, 30 inch range kraken bolts.

Well that wraps it up. As ussual thoughts and comments appreciated.

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