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I'm looking to start a space marine army, and was wondering if the army here:
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?catId=&categoryId=cat440271a§ion=&pIndex=3&aId=13600009a&start=4&multiPageMode=true is a good list. I'd also prefer to replace the terminator chaplain with a sternguard squad. It isn't top priority though. Tell me your thoughts on this list.

Ehhhhh not really.

90% of the lists you see in any GW official publication are generally an attempt to sell you models. As with any game, there are certain models or combinations of models that are just plain more efficient than others, and for anything competitive you want to stick to these efficient models/combos. Since GW wants to sell minis, they will often include unit that are not considered effective in their battleforces, or feature those units in lists on their website so that newer players see them and buy the models before they realize that they will not do well in a tournament.

In this case, the Whirlwind is useless, the Assault Terminators need a transport (A Land Riader, funded by removing the other Terminators and the Captain would be wise), and the troops could use a bit of a re-organization.

In general, when designing a list around a special character what you want to do is look for balance while using their special abilities to maximum effect. In this case, you want to give Shrike some backup, which calls for more scouts and potentially some extra armored threats to support a Land Raider and Assault Terminators. It's also not uncommon to run a Shrike list with nothing but Shrike, Scouts, and a squad for Shrike to join (Assault Squad or Assault Terminators, allowing for infiltration of a powerful assault unit and potential first turn assaults).

In general, I would not recommend a Shrike force as a starter, because balancing a list around Shrikes style of play can be complicated and require an investment of models that would otherwise be useless in a standard Space Marine list, meaning if you don't take Shrike you might not have the greatest collection of models to build a reasonable list from. If you want a more standard army built around a special character I would consider Vulkan or Lysander, as both use a good mix of models from the codex, and those models can still be used reasonably well without those characters present in the list.

If you really want to play Shrike though, I'm going to leave the majority of comments up to other posters, because I rarely play him and have only some vague ideas of how to design lists for him. If you decide you would rather play with different characters (or none at all) I will be more than happy to provide some example lists of how to effectively balance a force around their abilities, as I have a lot more experience with characters like Vulkan and Lysander than Shrike or Khan.

Hope that helps!

That army list would own any cc orentated army list and shooty lists but it might need some more shooty caability its self as most of the units will get swamped easly

Aldarionn wrote:Ehhhhh not really.

90% of the lists you see in any GW official publication are generally an attempt to sell you models. As with any game, there are certain models or combinations of models that are just plain more efficient than others, and for anything competitive you want to stick to these efficient models/combos. Since GW wants to sell minis, they will often include unit that are not considered effective in their battleforces, or feature those units in lists on their website so that newer players see them and buy the models before they realize that they will not do well in a tournament.

In this case, the Whirlwind is useless, the Assault Terminators need a transport (A Land Riader, funded by removing the other Terminators and the Captain would be wise), and the troops could use a bit of a re-organization.

In general, when designing a list around a special character what you want to do is look for balance while using their special abilities to maximum effect. In this case, you want to give Shrike some backup, which calls for more scouts and potentially some extra armored threats to support a Land Raider and Assault Terminators. It's also not uncommon to run a Shrike list with nothing but Shrike, Scouts, and a squad for Shrike to join (Assault Squad or Assault Terminators, allowing for infiltration of a powerful assault unit and potential first turn assaults).

In general, I would not recommend a Shrike force as a starter, because balancing a list around Shrikes style of play can be complicated and require an investment of models that would otherwise be useless in a standard Space Marine list, meaning if you don't take Shrike you might not have the greatest collection of models to build a reasonable list from. If you want a more standard army built around a special character I would consider Vulkan or Lysander, as both use a good mix of models from the codex, and those models can still be used reasonably well without those characters present in the list.

If you really want to play Shrike though, I'm going to leave the majority of comments up to other posters, because I rarely play him and have only some vague ideas of how to design lists for him. If you decide you would rather play with different characters (or none at all) I will be more than happy to provide some example lists of how to effectively balance a force around their abilities, as I have a lot more experience with characters like Vulkan and Lysander than Shrike or Khan.

Hope that helps!

Ahhh!! You again?
Oh well.
And since you've been my army list starter, what would you suggest?

It's your money, so you tell me lol. If you want to start "Space Marines" (IE generic, no specific chapter) then buy Tactical Squads, Rhinos, Predators, TH/SS Terminators, Land Raiders, Dreadnoughts, Etc... and go from there. If you want to play a specific chapter and use their characters, then let me know what you have in mind and we can go from there.