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Hello everyone. I've been playing warhammer 40k for about half a year and I need some advice on making a better army list. Here is the 1500 point list I've been using for quite a while now and haven't had much success with:

HQ
125- Captain w/ power sword and hellfire rounds

175- Terminator librarian epistolary

Elites
200- Terminator squad (5): 4 terminators w/ storm bolters and power fists, sergeant w/ power sword and storm bolter. 

105-dreadnought w/ multimelta and dreadnought close combat weapon. 

Troops
205- tactical squad (10): sergeant w/ chainsword and bolt pistol, 7 bolter marines, 1 rocket launcher, 1 flamer and a rhino

240- tactical squad (10): sergeant w/ chainsword and plasma pistol, 7 bolter marines, 1 rocket launcher, 1 plasma gun and a rhino w/ hunter killer. 

90- combat squad (5): sergeant w/ bolter, 4 marines w/ bolters. 

85- scout squad (5): sergeant w/ bolt pistol and chainsword, 3 shotgun scouts, 1 heavy bolter. 

Fast attack
150-assault squad (5): sergeant w/ power fist and storm shield, 3 chainsword and bolt pistol marines, 1 flamer. 

Heavy Support
125- vindicator w/ siege shield

What would you add to/change in this list? (it doesn't have to remain 1500 points) Thanks in advance!

There's a real mix going on here. I am assuming you feed units to your opponent piecemeal, which is why you're losing. You need to give them mutiple threats and time assaults so 2-3 units arrive at the same time.l

At 1,500 pts I would drop the captain and epistolary upgrade.

Termies, if they are D/S in then go for TH/SS - if sitting back then get a cyclone missile launcher for them.

5 man assualt squad is too small - termies can survive at 5 strong due to armour/invul but not assault troops.

MM dread is slow and really needs a drop-pod if he is to go in with termies and assualt troops.

5 deckchair scouts are better with sniper rifles and camo cloaks.

Vindie is short range and no other real targets for the main AV weapons. Can't see it lasting.

Personally I would suggest a stand and shoot army for you if you're struggling. Go Predators and razorbacks, typhoon speeders, dakka dreads. Shoot the enemy to death and then zoom in with troops to take objecitves T4.

Hmm, firstly, the Captain, he's not doing a lot for your army. You've got a power weapon and a boltgun (hellfire rounds) you should take a bolt pistol for the +1 attack for two close combat weapons. Though I guess that's a moot point as a Captain should only be taken if you're doing a bike army.

Librarian is good, though epistolary upgrade isn't needed.

Terminators, they should be Assault Terminators with thunder hammers and storm shields. When they derp strike they then can asborb some damage. You could instead place them on the board and the Librarian could take gate of infinity and you teleport them. Just put teleporter homers on your Tactical Squads Oh, always take units in pairs, it adds for threat and unit redundancy.

Tacticals aren't too bad. I would drop the unit of 5 or use points for else where to make them a unit of 10 with a Rhino.

Lose the Assault Squad altogether, they are not that awesome, plus you should take a full unit.

Vindicators are good tanks. You should take them in pairs for reasons already mentioned.

Hope that helps.

Some more reiteration:

Vindicator should not take Siege Shield, Dozer Blade is good enough.

Never take Tactical Termies

Captain should always take Relic Blade. The only time you need Hellfire Rounds is when he is on bike.

Tactical Squad: 5-man with LasPlas Razorback. or 10-man. There is no other choices.

No Assault Squad. They suck.

Vindicators and Pred come in pair.

The siege shield is standard on S.M Vindicators if I remember right.

Twice the cost of Dozer Blade actually.

Thank you. Ya I'm finding my assault squad doesn't do much. May add 5 more. Since I'm new I got assault on black reach which doesn't come with all the options, which sucks, but what can you do?

I know the next thing I'll be getting is a predator, magnetized for more tank hunting or anti heavy infantry firepower, then probably a land raider, magnetized for all the variants. Then maybe a termy assault squad to go with. I don't see what's wrong with regular terminators though. The storm bolters can do quite a bit!

What I'll do with my combat squad is I'll get a dev squad and tack it onto there for more bodies at less of a cost. I'm also considering a command squad for the cap with a razor back, a drop pod for dread, and it's very likely that I'll get 10 sternguard.


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I'm giving the captain the relic blade and taking off the hellfire rounds too. (though I do find good use for them some of the time.)


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And switching siege shield for dozed blade.

Before you start splurging your money, why not get a list in place. I am sure a few people on Dakka can suggest you what else to buy.

This plastic crack never ends, might as well buy something useful. My suggestion is to trade your 5 termies + 5-man tactical + 5-man assault squad for 5-man thunder hammer and stormshield (don't take LC). Then go and buy a Land Raider Redeemer box.

Hammernator + Termi Libby in LRR is crazily good.

Your don't need the captain at all. Make it a Librarian for 100 points with 2 powers, probably null zone and w/e else you feel like. If you have points, maybe give him termy armor, but it's usually not needed.

Drop the termy librarian.

Shooty terminators are fine, so long as you know how to use them. First, they need a cyclone missile launcher (If you don't have the actual model (They are a real pain to get online, and i assume you have the AOBR termies), find something that looks like a missile launcher and glue it on top of one termy. I use the missile launcher from the IG Sentinel and it looks fine).

The the unit sits in mid field, in cover, shooting at stuff and protecting unit in your back field from assault. If the enemy doesn't have too many power weapons or AP2 fire power, you can be more aggressive with them, but if they have too much AP2 then these termies won't last long since they have no shields.

The dread is okay, the only problem is that one of something is rarely much of a threat. I'd take 2 or none. If you do take them, hide them behind your rhinos so they always have cover.

Your scouts are fairly useless/bad. I'd drop them completely.

For the tac squads, i would take a melta and combi melta in each sqaud, with a rhino and either a multi-melta or missile launcher. No plasma pistols or hunterkillers (maybe hunterkillers if you have 10 points left over, but still meh).

I would almost never take a 5 man tac squad. They are just bad.

Assault marines are bad. Just leave them out. even at bigger group sizes they still lose to anything half decent at assaulting of equivalent cost (Grey Hunters, Blood Angels, anything else). While i admit that with proper target priority and careful movement you migth be able to make them work sometimes, in general, if you want decent assault marines, you need to play BA.

I really don't like vindicators, mainly because they are easy for the enemy to take care of. 1 weapon destroyed result shuts them down entirely, and any other result is almost as bad (immo makes it so all you have to do is stay out of the narrow cone that is their firing range). They are pretty bad against tanks, and cover makes them merely decent at killing infantry. Sure, they own paladins and whatnot, but any decent player is just going to shut it down in the first few turns anyway.

IMO, predators and devastators are the heavy support options you need to be considering.

At 1500, i would do something like this:

Lib, terminator armor, storm shield: 140 (i had 40 points left over, and not sure what to buy with them. If you wanted something else, drop the termy/SS and take something else)

Dread, MM, Dreadnought Wep: 115
Dread, MM, Dreadnought Wep: 115

5 terminators, 1 CLM: 230

10 tacs, 1 melta, 1 combi-melta, 1 Missile launcher, rhino: 220
10 tacs, 1 melta, 1 combi-melta, 1 Missile launcher, rhino: 220
10 tacs, 1 melta, 1 combi-melta, 1 Missile launcher, rhino: 220

Pedator, autocannon + lascannons: 120
Pedator, autocannon + lascannons: 120

=1500

Probably not perfect, but if you wanted to keep the dread and terminators this is how i would do it.

The 2 predators and 3 Missile halves of the tac sqauds provide you with a decent back field force to hold home objectives with and provide covering fire as your 3 Rhinos, 5 terminators, and 2 dreads advance. The librarian would go with the terminators. I would probably take null zone and gate on him, because null zone is awesome and in case you felt like porting the terminators around.

Those points you got left can pump out 4-5 HK missiles on those rhinos/pred. They will definitely take out a couple of LasPlas.

You could drop the scouts to make that last tactical squad a full ten man squad. Tactical marines are going to last longer than scouts with shotguns and a heavy bolter. If you want to keep the scouts then I would change the shotguns to sniper rifles. Sniper rifles work better with the 36" range of the heavy bolter.

I would drop the assault squad. In my experience five marines is not enough.

You could take a regular terminator librarian. What powers were you going to give to the Librarian? You could give him a storm sheild and let him roll with the terminators.

For the terminators, I would make them assault terminators and give them all thunder hammers and storm shields. Terminators with this loadout will be great against elite units and vehicles. You could throw in a couple pairs of lightning claws for some I4 attacks but they won't last as long. TH/SS terminators are awesome.

I would also get rid of the captain for another dreadnought. Dreadnoughts are awesome, too.

I don't really want to drop the captain, because I spent a lot of time painting him and he won some painting competitions. I cut the shotguns off my scouts and gave them bolters for more range and AP. (I never assault with them anyway.) I take the avenger and the gate of infinity with my terminator librarian. I'll write another list to be critiqued.


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I don't like the idea of dropping lots of my stuff because I spent hours painting them and I don't make lots of money to replace everything.


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HQ

125- Terminator librarian w/ avenger and Gate of infinity

Elites
460- Terminator Assault squad (5): 4 terminators with TH/SS, 1 sergeant with TH/SS + dedicated land raider w/ multi-melta

105-dreadnought with multimelta and dreadnought close combat weapon. 

Troops
170- tactical squad (10): sergeant w/ chainsword and bolt pistol, 7 bolter marines, 1 rocket launcher and 1 flamer.  35-Rhino

195- tactical squad (10): sergeant with chainsword and plasma pistol, 7 bolter marines, 1 rocket launcher, 1 plasma gun. 35- Rhino

85- scout squad (5): sergeant w/ bolt pistol and chainsword, 3 boltgun scouts, 1 heavy bolter. 

Heavy Support
125- vindicator with dozer blade.

165- pred with las sponsons and turret. 


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That's 1500 points

Here are two excellent codex SM lists:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/435339.page

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/1110/417456.page#3901639

@Matterman: You forgot rule #1 of Librarian in C:SM : You HAVE to take Null Zone.

I hope that LR is LRR or LRC because otherwise it is a bad choice.

All LasPred is very expensive. Drop to AC/LC for the extra 45 points and use that to make rocket launcher into LC, Flamer into Melta.

2 LC is always better than 1 twin-linked LC.

I'll have the land raider magnetized. I'll use the cru cru most of the time. I'll take null zone and G of I for my librarian. I had a big debate about the all las pred and i hear that statistically you need all las to take out a tank. Some people laughed at my buddy (who happens to be the manager of my local GW) for taking the tri-las and he took out a baneblade. Other than those quibbles is it a good list?


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Oh to make it 1750 I'd add: Dev Squad (10)- 2 PCs, 2RLs or 2 HBs

Other than those, everything else looks good. To up the ante to 1750, add another Vindi or Pred and another Dread (preferably rifleman).

Ok. Thank you for your help. May I ask why you dislike regular land raiders?

Because your termies have to get into where they want to be (fast or slow). Every time you move, you lose the ability to fire one to two weapons.

LRR and LRC has TL Assault Cannon which allows you to move a full 12" and fire. Next turn repeat that and disgorge your termies for assaulting (they get grenade for that turn as well, not that it matters since they usually have TH).

For a normal LR, you are force to sit back to take advantage of its guns. That doesn't mesh well with assault termies.

Many players dislike the standard land raider because it's not specialized to a particular role. The Crusader and Redeemer are more focused on the assault transport role, with their additional capacity and nasty short-ranged weaponry.

That being said, I think the standard LR is actually quite good in codex: SM. One of the nice things about it is that theirs has a 12 model capacity, so you can add a character or two to a squad of terminators, which Blood Angels and Space Wolves can't do. Codex: SM also aren't primarily an aggressive assaulty army. The regular LR works best in a SM army when being used to threaten the center of the table and provide counter-assault capabilities, rather than rushing straight across the table. When you're using it more conservatively like this, the pair of twin-linked lascannons which can target two different things are actually quite good, being very nice for popping transports and other light to medium vehicles at a distance.

Good thing I'm magnetizing. They both have their advantages.


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I've made another 1750pt all infantry list to incorporate the stuff I took out in the other one:

HQ
130- Captain with relic blade +
130- command squad w/ company champion,. 75-razorback w/ twin linked lascannon. 

Elites
230- Terminator squad (5): 3 terminators with SB/PF, Sergeant with SB/PF, 1 cyclone missile launcher

260- Sternguard squad (10)- Sergeant with special bolter, 7 Special bolters, 2 multi-meltas. 

Troops
170- tactical squad (10): sergeant w/ chainsword and bolt pistol, 7 bolter marines, 1 rocket launcher and 1 flamer.  35-Rhino

170- tactical squad (10): sergeant with chainsword and bolt pistol (proxy plasma pistol), 7 bolter marines, 1 rocket launcher, 1 flamer (proxy plasma gun.) 35- Rhino

Fast attack
250-assault squad (10): sergeant w/ power fist and storm shield, 7 chainsword and bolt pistol marines, 2 flamers. 

Heavy Support
250- 10 man dev squad- sergeant with bolter, 5 bolter marines, 2 rocket launcher, 2 plasma cannons


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Add Chapter Banner for 15 points.

Command Squad should be tooled out for either shooty or killy. For shooty, go for 4x Plasma guns. FNP makes them hard to die of get hot.

For killy, tool them with 2x meltagun, 3x LC, 1x TH, 2x SS. Put them with a Relic Blade Captain and you are ready to kill anything.

For assault squad, drop the SS. Take the wound on the other boys first.

10-man combat squad dev squad is not bad. They are really really bad. :( For 250 pts, you can bring 2 Dreadnoughts that are super killy. If you have to use dev squad, go for 4 rocket launcher and pop transports. Don't forget to use Signum.

Should I still take the 10 man dev squad in my other list?

Assault squads just don't do it for me personally. Assault bikes are $$$.

If you can use something else in HS slot, do not use dev squad.

I want to add my combat squad from the battleforce to a devastator squads to save the $ and not waste models. I don't see what's wrong with them other than points. Take two combat squad with 2 heavy weapons each and you can even split targets.


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Actually, what I could do is switch out the RLs of my tac squads with lascannons/plasma cannons (way cheaper than buying lascannons/ plasma cannons for devs) and then use 4 RLs for my dev squad!

The point is the point.

For the same amount of point, you are getting less fires and subject to leadership test. The most useful configuration is 150 pts for 4 ML in a dev squad. Anything else is just too expensive for what they do.

I understand the need to conserve models but you can always convert those models into something else or sell them back. 5th edition is mech edition, don't use infantry when you don't have to.

I WOULD take 4 missiles, but I have 2 missiles per tac squad, and the dev squad comes with 1. =3 only

If it is not a tourney, why not just proxy. Use a normal guy as a missle guy, just make sure to remove him first. :-0