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The Codex is out for quite a while and even has seen some tournament play i guess. So it´s time to ask: I didn´t catch the reports about the codex when it came out because I swapped the system to Warmachine but my poor Marines are sort of sad sitting there on my shelve...
What do you think about the new codex? Do Marines have a fighting chance against Eldar & Tau now?

Marines always had a fighting chance against Eldar or Tau. We have a slightly higher chance now, but still not even to fight on even ground. Sure, some units are now cheaper, but if you factor in the upgrades you typically take on units like the Tactical Squad, the total price actually comes out to be around the same, if not exactly the same. Devastators got a delicious point cost drop in terms of upgrades though.

Chapter Tactics is good, free army-wide buffs, but not enough to completely turn the tide.

Centurions are gimmicky, and won't stand a chance against the AP2 weaponary of the Tau and Eldar. Toughness 5 is nothing against Tau when their basic troop weapons are Strength 5.

Not too much else really. Thunderfire cannons are barrage, so if you somehow have more than one, bring 'em all and barrage them from a safe location.

Can't really say much else though, haven't played a lot of games with 6th Ed Space Marines.

Thus far in my games, I have seen marines being fairly capable against the Tau/Eldar armies out there. There are a few builds and tools that provide this.

Bike Armies
These are the new hotness of the C:SM codex, and I'm not going to lie -- they are good. A chapter master on a bike with the shield eternal and power fist/hammer is just brutal. I've used mine to tangle up riptides and kill wraithknights before.

Grav guns have synergy with bikes are are hell on wheels vs most targets. Bikes got cheaper, and are now 21 points per model with no surcharge to start the squad. (Remember in the last codes it was 90 points for 3, then 25 after. That was a surcharge of 15 points to start the squad)

Bad matchups are daemon cavalry -- where your grav guns are less effective and your stuck in assault on round 2.


Drop Pods
Drop pod spam is alive and well. You can bring a tremendous amount of bodies down on the board quickly making it hard for your opponent to deal.

You can even take 3 drop pods for your TFCs, which will start on the board -- but give you 3 more pods for your drop pod assault. This means if your taking 5 TAC squads + 3 sternguard squads + 3 TFC drop pods you can drop 11 pods, or 6 on the first turn.

What makes this more feasible is the fact that most marine models got cheaper. 14 points for a base marine and 22 for a base sternguard make for very affordable infantry units.

Alternatively you can run with Khan, put all 80+ bodies in rhinos then scout them up on turn 1 making for an incredible 'in your face' unit.


MEQ Spam
Provided that you bring the tools to deal with wave serpents, you can field tons of MEQ for cheap. BT are perfect for this role. The idea is your just throwing down tons of bodies that will make it hard for your opponent to deal with.

BT are good because they run more quickly and can take 20 man blobs in crusader squads. Some people might not like this style of play -- as it leads to a lot of sitting around and getting shot. However, this is a build that can win.

Its important to note that you must have something to kill wave serpents. A serpent spam player can kill 20 marines a turn if left unmolested. Molest them. You will lose 20 on the first turn, 15 on second turn, 10 on third turn, etc... Its a war of attrition that you want to be able to win.


Skies of Death
This is a build I started with this weekend. Its got a steep learning curve, but from my test games has been very strong. The idea is you bring 3 stormravens, 3 stormtalon, tigerious to reroll reserves and your troops in drop pods.

It has a ton of firepower and is hard to hurt. The drawback is that you wont find many people who want to play with you (its not fun to play vs 6 flyers) and has a steep learning curve -- ie, when do you go into hover mode -- how do you manage 6 flyers that cover the entire board, etc...


Key Units
Some of they key units have been mentioned above and how to take advantage of them.

Tigerious is now money. He is one of the best support characters, and is a hard counter for a lot of armies since he has a very strong chance to get misfortune.

TFCs are good now. You can force your opponent to spread out, and can deliver tons of damage to anything that is clumped together. Combined with their ability to cause pinning tests, snipe targets and bolster defences they are very strong.

Centurians can deliver a lot of punch but have expensive price tags. Don't go overboard on them. Don't forget their hurricane bolters. I've even made a case for assault cents using just hurricane bolters and melta guns.

Honor guard are pretty good for their cost. In every game I've used them I've been impressed with them. They work best with Iron Hands or White Scars.

LSS can now be dedicated transports. Blind against specific Tau targets is lots of fun. Nothing like lowering a riptide to BS1.

LotD got a lot better. They are excellent at dropping down and killing units. They fit best with ultramarines or Vulcan. They are your go-to for deep striking melta/grav now.

Sternguard got cheaper, but fill a different role. They are 22 points a pop, and now are better used for their special ammo. For the deep striking suicide squad, take LotD.

Is there any value to "jump pack spam", that is, taking three squads of assault marines in fast attack and three squads of vanguard vets in elites?

Is this more or less useful if the troops squads are filled with bikes? Could there just be too much fast-moving power armour for an opponent to deal with?

 mazzHammer wrote:
Is there any value to "jump pack spam", that is, taking three squads of assault marines in fast attack and three squads of vanguard vets in elites?

Is this more or less useful if the troops squads are filled with bikes? Could there just be too much fast-moving power armour for an opponent to deal with?

Maybe instead of Vanguard Vets you ally BA for two scoring squads and Mephiston? But, IMO Jump Pack spam really isn't a viable option..

I see a lack of scoring units being a big problem with Jump Pack Spam. It never really worked for BA, and I can't see nonscoring JP Marines doing much better.

labmouse42 is pretty much right on target. And I totally like the idea of an Ironhands Airforce with a nasty Chapter Master somewhere for kicks.

There is value in it if you play Fire Hawks or BA. That's about it. Not even RG could get away with it against the stronger armies, IMO.

Spamming jump marines is less useful than spamming bikes (unfortunately). Yes, there can be such a thing as jump pack power armor oversaturation, but we will never reach it at the current price points for jump units.

 labmouse42 wrote:
Thus far in my games, I have seen marines being fairly capable against the Tau/Eldar armies out there. There are a few builds and tools that provide this.

Bike Armies
These are the new hotness of the C:SM codex, and I'm not going to lie -- they are good. A chapter master on a bike with the shield eternal and power fist/hammer is just brutal. I've used mine to tangle up riptides and kill wraithknights before.

Grav guns have synergy with bikes are are hell on wheels vs most targets. Bikes got cheaper, and are now 21 points per model with no surcharge to start the squad. (Remember in the last codes it was 90 points for 3, then 25 after. That was a surcharge of 15 points to start the squad)

Bad matchups are daemon cavalry -- where your grav guns are less effective and your stuck in assault on round 2.


Drop Pods
Drop pod spam is alive and well. You can bring a tremendous amount of bodies down on the board quickly making it hard for your opponent to deal.

You can even take 3 drop pods for your TFCs, which will start on the board -- but give you 3 more pods for your drop pod assault. This means if your taking 5 TAC squads + 3 sternguard squads + 3 TFC drop pods you can drop 11 pods, or 6 on the first turn.

What makes this more feasible is the fact that most marine models got cheaper. 14 points for a base marine and 22 for a base sternguard make for very affordable infantry units.

Alternatively you can run with Khan, put all 80+ bodies in rhinos then scout them up on turn 1 making for an incredible 'in your face' unit.


MEQ Spam
Provided that you bring the tools to deal with wave serpents, you can field tons of MEQ for cheap. BT are perfect for this role. The idea is your just throwing down tons of bodies that will make it hard for your opponent to deal with.

BT are good because they run more quickly and can take 20 man blobs in crusader squads. Some people might not like this style of play -- as it leads to a lot of sitting around and getting shot. However, this is a build that can win.

Its important to note that you must have something to kill wave serpents. A serpent spam player can kill 20 marines a turn if left unmolested. Molest them. You will lose 20 on the first turn, 15 on second turn, 10 on third turn, etc... Its a war of attrition that you want to be able to win.


Skies of Death
This is a build I started with this weekend. Its got a steep learning curve, but from my test games has been very strong. The idea is you bring 3 stormravens, 3 stormtalon, tigerious to reroll reserves and your troops in drop pods.

It has a ton of firepower and is hard to hurt. The drawback is that you wont find many people who want to play with you (its not fun to play vs 6 flyers) and has a steep learning curve -- ie, when do you go into hover mode -- how do you manage 6 flyers that cover the entire board, etc...


Key Units
Some of they key units have been mentioned above and how to take advantage of them.

Tigerious is now money. He is one of the best support characters, and is a hard counter for a lot of armies since he has a very strong chance to get misfortune.

TFCs are good now. You can force your opponent to spread out, and can deliver tons of damage to anything that is clumped together. Combined with their ability to cause pinning tests, snipe targets and bolster defences they are very strong.

Centurians can deliver a lot of punch but have expensive price tags. Don't go overboard on them. Don't forget their hurricane bolters. I've even made a case for assault cents using just hurricane bolters and melta guns.

Honor guard are pretty good for their cost. In every game I've used them I've been impressed with them. They work best with Iron Hands or White Scars.

LSS can now be dedicated transports. Blind against specific Tau targets is lots of fun. Nothing like lowering a riptide to BS1.

LotD got a lot better. They are excellent at dropping down and killing units. They fit best with ultramarines or Vulcan. They are your go-to for deep striking melta/grav now.

Sternguard got cheaper, but fill a different role. They are 22 points a pop, and now are better used for their special ammo. For the deep striking suicide squad, take LotD.

This is actually a very good summary of the new hotties in the SM codex. You could probably add Ravenguard as a very fast moving army. But I haven't played them yet and so won't comment on them.

 Zagman wrote:
labmouse42 is pretty much right on target. And I totally like the idea of an Ironhands Airforce with a nasty Chapter Master somewhere for kicks.

I've found ultramarines is better. This is simply because of Tigerious, who is a comm-relay in a can. Its the difference between having 8/9 of your flyers come in on turn 2 instead of 2/3 of them.

If you know of another cheap, good way to ensure flyers come on the board, I'm all ears. I've been considering allying in Eldar with an autarch and jetbike squad for the +1 reserve roll.

 Tyberos the Red Wake wrote:
Spamming jump marines is less useful than spamming bikes (unfortunately). Yes, there can be such a thing as jump pack power armor oversaturation, but we will never reach it at the current price points for jump units.

OK, with the force org chart the way it is these days, it's possible to spam BOTH, isn't it? Fill a few Troops slots with Bikes, and use the VV in Elites and Assault Marines in Fast Attack, perhaps with a sprinkling of Land Speeders. There would be a lot of speed there, and I wonder if it would be too fast for some armies to deal with.

 labmouse42 wrote:

 Zagman wrote:
labmouse42 is pretty much right on target. And I totally like the idea of an Ironhands Airforce with a nasty Chapter Master somewhere for kicks.

I've found ultramarines is better. This is simply because of Tigerious, who is a comm-relay in a can. Its the difference between having 8/9 of your flyers come in on turn 2 instead of 2/3 of them.

If you know of another cheap, good way to ensure flyers come on the board, I'm all ears. I've been considering allying in Eldar with an autarch and jetbike squad for the +1 reserve roll.

Tigerius' built in reserve manipulation is great, though I wonder if the built in resiliency of the Ironhands outweighs its reduced reliability of bringing its flyers. The more I think about it the more I think you are right, risking the delayed arrival really isn't worth it. Reserve manipulation and increased offense will trump IWND every day of the week.


Best I can come up with would be running a Iron Hands Chapter Master and scoring bikes with a forward placed Aegis with Comms Relay. Move forward enough to man the Comms in preparation for your T2 Alphas Strike of Combined Bike squads and Air Force.

Other option is a Bastion with Comms relay, but I don't like this idea much.

"Best I can come up with would be running a Iron Hands Chapter Master and scoring bikes with a forward placed Aegis with Comms Relay. Move forward enough to man the Comms in preparation for your T2 Alphas Strike of Combined Bike squads and Air Force. "

Be careful your opponent doesn't place impassable terrain around the aegis line, making it difficult to get to by turn 2. Why terrain goes down after fortifications, I have no idea.

 Zagman wrote:
Tigerius' built in reserve manipulation is great, though I wonder if the built in resiliency of the Ironhands outweighs its reduced reliability of bringing its flyers. The more I think about it the more I think you are right, risking the delayed arrival really isn't worth it. Reserve manipulation and increased offense will trump IWND every day of the week.

I've been spending a lot of thought into this concept lately. So much so I have already bought 3 ravens, 3 talons and 3 pods and tried them out over the weekend! So here are some neat tricks. A lot of this is rehashing thoughts found in my other posts, and I may just turn this into its own post. I would love some input if you have ideas on how to make it work better.

Game Turns and going second
"Likewise, if at the end of any game turn, one player has no models on the battlefield, his opponent automatically wins".
p122 of the BRB

"In a complete game turn, each player gets a player turn"
p9 of the BRB

So as long as you have some models dropping down by the end of your turn you cannot lose via not having models.
It also means that if I go second, I can drop 2 empty pods onto the table, and then reserve everything else in the last pod and storm ravens. My opponent will probably get first blood and kill a pod, but I will still have most of my army coming in on the bottom of turn 2.
This is the ideal case, as it effectively removes 2 turns of my opponents shooting for the possibility of giving first blood.

Reserve Denial
You could actually start with 1 unit that does not have to start in reserve, yet still reserve them.
This is because you are able to normally reserve 1/2 of your army - rounding up. If you have only 1 unit in my army that can reserve (as all the rest are forced in reserve and do not count for the limit) then the number is .5, which rounded up is 1.
Ergo, you could add a LSS and scout squad to the 'death from the skies' list and not face any problems.
ICs count as a separate unit for the count, so you cannot add an IC and squad in a rhino and reserve them. You get only 1 thing, so make it count.

Reserving units in Storm Ravens
Q: Do units that are transported in a vehicle that MUST start in reserve count towards the number of units that can be placed in Reserves? For example, must I count the units in a Drop Pod or Valkyrie towards the 50% of units I can place in Reserves?
(p124)
A: No.

This FAQ mentions Valkyries which cannot be taken as dedicated transports. This means that if you indicate that Tiggy is in the Drop Pod and the 5 man is in a Storm Raven, both of those units are in transports which must start in reserve. Thus, it is possible for you to have no units counting towards the minimum.

Note, this would let me add dreadnoughts to the army as an option to reserve and deep strike. Its a same dreadnoughts suck.

So you can play the reserve game, but can you win?
The skies of death list with 3 ravens and 3 talons will put out this every turn.
36 - TL Bolter Shots
12 - TL BS5 AC shots
12 - TL BS4 AC shots
3 - TL MM shots
3 - STR 8 AP2 missiles
9 - BS 5 STR 7 AP4 shots.

When it comes to damage output against infantry, you need to have 7 wave serpents to match the firepower*. In my games I was finding that I could just erase squads at a turn with little or no risk of return fire.

Unlike the wave serpents which bring just STR 6/7 spam, the skies of death brings lots of AP1 shots, 3 melta shots and lots of AP4 shots. This means that the overall impact to some armies (guard) will be much higher.

( That's 7 serpents shooting just serpent shield and SL. If you include the underslung shooting at normal BS, 5 serpents match the same firepower. If you include the underslung shooting as a snap fire, 6 serpents make the same firepower)

Learning to Fly
One of the challenges I've learned is that flying 6 flyers on a board is actually rather hard to coordinate. You want to be within 12" to take full advantage of your hurricane bolters, but you need to worry about overshooting your target. In this effect, rushing up the middle of the board is generally a bad thing. You need to have room to maneuver to the left or right 18" and still have a target.

So the best flight pattern is to move 3 flyers up each side of the board focusing on a target. Lets call these squadren Alpha and Beta. Use the right flyers at the right targets. Talons are better at killing high toughness targets like bikes or big bugs, where ravens are good at clearing infantry or heavy armor. So if there are big bugs on the left side of the board, bring 1 raven and 2 talons up that side, and your 2 ravens and 1 talon up the other.

After you have flown up and shot, your going to want to move force Alpha up to 90 degrees and shoot another target on turn 3. Ideally you should hit 2 other units during this time. On turn 4, you want to fly one force off the board to ensure you have board presence on turn 5. If your planning on dropping units onto objectives, this is a good time to do that with those units. Your other squad can move up and shoot up any deck chairs your opponent has. On turn 5, you can drop onto objectives and/or go into hover mode at the back side of your opponents board, clearing off his deck chairs and lining you up for another strafing run if the game goes to 6 and 7.

As you can imagine, this makes playing 'hammer and anvil' more difficult, as you have less flexibility to move around. The advantage of hammer and anvil is that you can more easily protect your backfield units.

This is complicated, and I've not mastered it yet. In another 3 months I may be saying 'I was making crazy talk' and changing my plans dramatically. I've also not played a wave serpent spam player yet -- I might just say that its hard countered by serpent spam. Like all battle strategies, it will also evaporate at first contact with the enemy

Putting it Together
Tigurius, 3 storm ravens and 3 storm talons cost 1230 points. This means that your going to have some people to burn depending on the total value of the mission. This means that your total investment in flyers will be 1230/(army cost) defined as a percentage. So if your playing a 2000 point game, your bringing 61.5% points invested in flyers/tiggy. If your playing a 1500 point game your bringing 82% of flyers/tiggy.

The ratio of flyers you want can go no higher than 82%, as you will need at least 1500 points to get 2 drop pods and 5 man squads. Even at 1500, you might want to consider dropping a talon in favor of more troops, to lower the percentage of points you have invested in flyers/tiggy.

 labmouse42 wrote:

 Zagman wrote:
Tigerius' built in reserve manipulation is great, though I wonder if the built in resiliency of the Ironhands outweighs its reduced reliability of bringing its flyers. The more I think about it the more I think you are right, risking the delayed arrival really isn't worth it. Reserve manipulation and increased offense will trump IWND every day of the week.

I've been spending a lot of thought into this concept lately. So much so I have already bought 3 ravens, 3 talons and 3 pods and tried them out over the weekend! So here are some neat tricks. A lot of this is rehashing thoughts found in my other posts, and I may just turn this into its own post. I would love some input if you have ideas on how to make it work better.

Game Turns and going second
"Likewise, if at the end of any game turn, one player has no models on the battlefield, his opponent automatically wins".
p122 of the BRB

"In a complete game turn, each player gets a player turn"
p9 of the BRB

So as long as you have some models dropping down by the end of your turn you cannot lose via not having models.
It also means that if I go second, I can drop 2 empty pods onto the table, and then reserve everything else in the last pod and storm ravens. My opponent will probably get first blood and kill a pod, but I will still have most of my army coming in on the bottom of turn 2.
This is the ideal case, as it effectively removes 2 turns of my opponents shooting for the possibility of giving first blood.

Reserve Denial
You could actually start with 1 unit that does not have to start in reserve, yet still reserve them.
This is because you are able to normally reserve 1/2 of your army - rounding up. If you have only 1 unit in my army that can reserve (as all the rest are forced in reserve and do not count for the limit) then the number is .5, which rounded up is 1.
Ergo, you could add a LSS and scout squad to the 'death from the skies' list and not face any problems.
ICs count as a separate unit for the count, so you cannot add an IC and squad in a rhino and reserve them. You get only 1 thing, so make it count.

Reserving units in Storm Ravens
Q: Do units that are transported in a vehicle that MUST start in reserve count towards the number of units that can be placed in Reserves? For example, must I count the units in a Drop Pod or Valkyrie towards the 50% of units I can place in Reserves?
(p124)
A: No.

This FAQ mentions Valkyries which cannot be taken as dedicated transports. This means that if you indicate that Tiggy is in the Drop Pod and the 5 man is in a Storm Raven, both of those units are in transports which must start in reserve. Thus, it is possible for you to have no units counting towards the minimum.

Note, this would let me add dreadnoughts to the army as an option to reserve and deep strike. Its a same dreadnoughts suck.

So you can play the reserve game, but can you win?
The skies of death list with 3 ravens and 3 talons will put out this every turn.
36 - TL Bolter Shots
12 - TL BS5 AC shots
12 - TL BS4 AC shots
3 - TL MM shots
3 - STR 8 AP2 missiles
9 - BS 5 STR 7 AP4 shots.

When it comes to damage output against infantry, you need to have 7 wave serpents to match the firepower*. In my games I was finding that I could just erase squads at a turn with little or no risk of return fire.

Unlike the wave serpents which bring just STR 6/7 spam, the skies of death brings lots of AP1 shots, 3 melta shots and lots of AP4 shots. This means that the overall impact to some armies (guard) will be much higher.

( That's 7 serpents shooting just serpent shield and SL. If you include the underslung shooting at normal BS, 5 serpents match the same firepower. If you include the underslung shooting as a snap fire, 6 serpents make the same firepower)

Learning to Fly
One of the challenges I've learned is that flying 6 flyers on a board is actually rather hard to coordinate. You want to be within 12" to take full advantage of your hurricane bolters, but you need to worry about overshooting your target. In this effect, rushing up the middle of the board is generally a bad thing. You need to have room to maneuver to the left or right 18" and still have a target.

So the best flight pattern is to move 3 flyers up each side of the board focusing on a target. Lets call these squadren Alpha and Beta. Use the right flyers at the right targets. Talons are better at killing high toughness targets like bikes or big bugs, where ravens are good at clearing infantry or heavy armor. So if there are big bugs on the left side of the board, bring 1 raven and 2 talons up that side, and your 2 ravens and 1 talon up the other.

After you have flown up and shot, your going to want to move force Alpha up to 90 degrees and shoot another target on turn 3. Ideally you should hit 2 other units during this time. On turn 4, you want to fly one force off the board to ensure you have board presence on turn 5. If your planning on dropping units onto objectives, this is a good time to do that with those units. Your other squad can move up and shoot up any deck chairs your opponent has. On turn 5, you can drop onto objectives and/or go into hover mode at the back side of your opponents board, clearing off his deck chairs and lining you up for another strafing run if the game goes to 6 and 7.

As you can imagine, this makes playing 'hammer and anvil' more difficult, as you have less flexibility to move around. The advantage of hammer and anvil is that you can more easily protect your backfield units.

This is complicated, and I've not mastered it yet. In another 3 months I may be saying 'I was making crazy talk' and changing my plans dramatically. I've also not played a wave serpent spam player yet -- I might just say that its hard countered by serpent spam. Like all battle strategies, it will also evaporate at first contact with the enemy

Putting it Together
Tigurius, 3 storm ravens and 3 storm talons cost 1230 points. This means that your going to have some people to burn depending on the total value of the mission. This means that your total investment in flyers will be 1230/(army cost) defined as a percentage. So if your playing a 2000 point game, your bringing 61.5% points invested in flyers/tiggy. If your playing a 1500 point game your bringing 82% of flyers/tiggy.

The ratio of flyers you want can go no higher than 82%, as you will need at least 1500 points to get 2 drop pods and 5 man squads. Even at 1500, you might want to consider dropping a talon in favor of more troops, to lower the percentage of points you have invested in flyers/tiggy.

I would be very careful with your reserve denial strategy. You run the risk of your opponent Seizing the Initiative with a very small board presence. Also, you struggle if you are forced into going 1st. It is possible for some enemies to table you T1 in this fashion. Reserve Denial only works in 42% of games.

I know our natural inclination is to favor brigning all flyers in reliably with Tigerius T2... but, bear with me... what if it is actually in our favor to have a 2/3 reserve strategy and the Ironhands Resiliency is just a bonus? By staggering 1/3 of your force through natural reserves rolling you get an average smaller secondary force that arrives and reduces your footprint issues. It will also grant you better firing options for your flyoff T3/4. Yes, we lose 1/3 of a turn of Shooting, but gain resiliency with the potential to even out your offense, especially your fire lanes and targeting.

We have few mandatory points spent in to Tiggy, can take an assault orientated element with the Chapter Master in a Raven. Some ground presence makes sweeping crucial squads and assaulting resilient AA platforms doable.

I know you feel that Dreads aren't worth it anymore, but what about a pair of cheap Iron Hands Ven Dreads in a pod with MMs and Heavy Flamers? 170pts. Most armies with careful placement will not be able to handle two Ven Dreads and two Pods in a single Turn if Reserve Denial fails. 340pts which is resilient and capable of Alpha Striking many AA Units, or at the worst DSing at range and hiding.

I don't think the full Air Force is viable until 1750/1850. At 2k, the possibility of allying in a 4th Raven or Storm Talon is doable.

The new space marine codex is pretty fantastic. I think Labmouse42 has nailed it with 2 exceptions and I will of course add some thoughts so I can feel important.

Exception 1; Riptides have black sun filters and so cannot be blinded.

Exception 2; Ravenguard can do scout forward rhinos just as well as khan. In fact a little better because they get stealth turn 1 in the smoking ruins of the mobile cover (sometimes known as a rhino). Khan of course can give you other benefits so it is tough to say who is better.

Labmouse has really given a fantastic writeup here.

My thoughts on space marines;

There is a tool for everything in this codex. You just need to take the right tools i the right ratios. The chapter tactics then go that extra step to better tweak the tools you brought.

TAC squads can actually be great if you get them where they are needed and bring proper support. If you want the ability to redeploy and play in a fluid manner then you really need to take bike squads.

People speak negatively about centurions but they are fantastic support unit. The secret is to not go overboard and spend all your points on them.

Legion of the Damned are incredible with their ability to lay down ignore cover melta, plasma, or grav.

Sternguard are exactly as Labmouse42 said better served using their special ammo. If you give them combi weapons galore like in the past they become far too expensive.

TFC is almost a must take these days. Even if it does no damage it is a tool that allows you to force the opponent to spread out. I am convinced it is always worthwhile to take 1-2.

Marines need to use their entire tool kit. Remember that those krak grenades make them death to vehicles in melee and that combat squading can give you two units and let you use one of the units as chaff.

Anyways I'll finish rambling here. I will also say as an elysian guard player that 6 flyers is pretty much the max you can play as flyers. Once you hit 7 flyers you will have to run some in hover. I will post in your army list thread Labmouse42 as I have some ideas about playing your list as iron hands. I think that it could be done but I do agree that you do need reroll reserves to ensure you get something on turn 2.

 Zagman wrote:

 mazzHammer wrote:
Is there any value to "jump pack spam", that is, taking three squads of assault marines in fast attack and three squads of vanguard vets in elites?

Is this more or less useful if the troops squads are filled with bikes? Could there just be too much fast-moving power armour for an opponent to deal with?

Maybe instead of Vanguard Vets you ally BA for two scoring squads and Mephiston? But, IMO Jump Pack spam really isn't a viable option..

I see a lack of scoring units being a big problem with Jump Pack Spam. It never really worked for BA, and I can't see nonscoring JP Marines doing much better.

labmouse42 is pretty much right on target. And I totally like the idea of an Ironhands Airforce with a nasty Chapter Master somewhere for kicks.

Actually, jumppack spam w/ priests worked very well back in the day. Nowadays its meh, still very doable though, but only because they count as troops for us and we get the FnP.

The really depressing thing about this topic is how important it is to go first. If marines can get off TFC shots before the screamer star or seer council goes, we can wreck them. If not, we'll get run over.

 labmouse42 wrote:

 Zagman wrote:
Tigerius' built in reserve manipulation is great, though I wonder if the built in resiliency of the Ironhands outweighs its reduced reliability of bringing its flyers. The more I think about it the more I think you are right, risking the delayed arrival really isn't worth it. Reserve manipulation and increased offense will trump IWND every day of the week.

I've been spending a lot of thought into this concept lately. So much so I have already bought 3 ravens, 3 talons and 3 pods and tried them out over the weekend! So here are some neat tricks. A lot of this is rehashing thoughts found in my other posts, and I may just turn this into its own post. I would love some input if you have ideas on how to make it work better.

Game Turns and going second
"Likewise, if at the end of any game turn, one player has no models on the battlefield, his opponent automatically wins".
p122 of the BRB

"In a complete game turn, each player gets a player turn"
p9 of the BRB

So as long as you have some models dropping down by the end of your turn you cannot lose via not having models.
It also means that if I go second, I can drop 2 empty pods onto the table, and then reserve everything else in the last pod and storm ravens. My opponent will probably get first blood and kill a pod, but I will still have most of my army coming in on the bottom of turn 2.
This is the ideal case, as it effectively removes 2 turns of my opponents shooting for the possibility of giving first blood.

Reserve Denial
You could actually start with 1 unit that does not have to start in reserve, yet still reserve them.
This is because you are able to normally reserve 1/2 of your army - rounding up. If you have only 1 unit in my army that can reserve (as all the rest are forced in reserve and do not count for the limit) then the number is .5, which rounded up is 1.
Ergo, you could add a LSS and scout squad to the 'death from the skies' list and not face any problems.
ICs count as a separate unit for the count, so you cannot add an IC and squad in a rhino and reserve them. You get only 1 thing, so make it count.

Reserving units in Storm Ravens
Q: Do units that are transported in a vehicle that MUST start in reserve count towards the number of units that can be placed in Reserves? For example, must I count the units in a Drop Pod or Valkyrie towards the 50% of units I can place in Reserves?
(p124)
A: No.

This FAQ mentions Valkyries which cannot be taken as dedicated transports. This means that if you indicate that Tiggy is in the Drop Pod and the 5 man is in a Storm Raven, both of those units are in transports which must start in reserve. Thus, it is possible for you to have no units counting towards the minimum.

Note, this would let me add dreadnoughts to the army as an option to reserve and deep strike. Its a same dreadnoughts suck.

So you can play the reserve game, but can you win?
The skies of death list with 3 ravens and 3 talons will put out this every turn.
36 - TL Bolter Shots
12 - TL BS5 AC shots
12 - TL BS4 AC shots
3 - TL MM shots
3 - STR 8 AP2 missiles
9 - BS 5 STR 7 AP4 shots.

When it comes to damage output against infantry, you need to have 7 wave serpents to match the firepower*. In my games I was finding that I could just erase squads at a turn with little or no risk of return fire.

Unlike the wave serpents which bring just STR 6/7 spam, the skies of death brings lots of AP1 shots, 3 melta shots and lots of AP4 shots. This means that the overall impact to some armies (guard) will be much higher.

( That's 7 serpents shooting just serpent shield and SL. If you include the underslung shooting at normal BS, 5 serpents match the same firepower. If you include the underslung shooting as a snap fire, 6 serpents make the same firepower)

Learning to Fly
One of the challenges I've learned is that flying 6 flyers on a board is actually rather hard to coordinate. You want to be within 12" to take full advantage of your hurricane bolters, but you need to worry about overshooting your target. In this effect, rushing up the middle of the board is generally a bad thing. You need to have room to maneuver to the left or right 18" and still have a target.

So the best flight pattern is to move 3 flyers up each side of the board focusing on a target. Lets call these squadren Alpha and Beta. Use the right flyers at the right targets. Talons are better at killing high toughness targets like bikes or big bugs, where ravens are good at clearing infantry or heavy armor. So if there are big bugs on the left side of the board, bring 1 raven and 2 talons up that side, and your 2 ravens and 1 talon up the other.

After you have flown up and shot, your going to want to move force Alpha up to 90 degrees and shoot another target on turn 3. Ideally you should hit 2 other units during this time. On turn 4, you want to fly one force off the board to ensure you have board presence on turn 5. If your planning on dropping units onto objectives, this is a good time to do that with those units. Your other squad can move up and shoot up any deck chairs your opponent has. On turn 5, you can drop onto objectives and/or go into hover mode at the back side of your opponents board, clearing off his deck chairs and lining you up for another strafing run if the game goes to 6 and 7.

As you can imagine, this makes playing 'hammer and anvil' more difficult, as you have less flexibility to move around. The advantage of hammer and anvil is that you can more easily protect your backfield units.

This is complicated, and I've not mastered it yet. In another 3 months I may be saying 'I was making crazy talk' and changing my plans dramatically. I've also not played a wave serpent spam player yet -- I might just say that its hard countered by serpent spam. Like all battle strategies, it will also evaporate at first contact with the enemy

Putting it Together
Tigurius, 3 storm ravens and 3 storm talons cost 1230 points. This means that your going to have some people to burn depending on the total value of the mission. This means that your total investment in flyers will be 1230/(army cost) defined as a percentage. So if your playing a 2000 point game, your bringing 61.5% points invested in flyers/tiggy. If your playing a 1500 point game your bringing 82% of flyers/tiggy.

The ratio of flyers you want can go no higher than 82%, as you will need at least 1500 points to get 2 drop pods and 5 man squads. Even at 1500, you might want to consider dropping a talon in favor of more troops, to lower the percentage of points you have invested in flyers/tiggy.

Labmouse42 you are my hero for putting this up. +1

I dont play marines,
but ai play against them fairly often,

here is what I have noticed changed:

people have more marines, before 20-30 was normal, now I usually see 30+ marines in a 1500+ army

they still have acess to lots of re rolls, more so with the chapter tactics and allied divination possiblities

grav guns: actually really good against most things that are not hordes of light infantry, MC's vehicles, all will cower in fear, they are not super UBER, but they seem to fill a nice niche.

people seem to be focusing more on the troops/fa/heavy then the HQ, but that could be the local meta.


to the above above post, that is mean looking flyer list!

One of the new units that seems to have a lot of people stumped (including myself) is devastator centurions. Sure, there is the obvious benefit of toting three gravcannons onto the battlefield, but they are a bit fragile for their points cost, and boy-howdy are they expensive.

I've used them twice in the three games I've played since the new codex came out. The first time they rolled down the middle of the battlefield and wiped out a unit of noise marines and a rhino in one turn. In the other game, they harassed a few Necron units, but ultimately didn't do a whole lot of damage outside of immobilizing a couple of vehicles. In both games, I took 3 of them.

What I HAVE learned is that its not a bad idea to equip one cent with TL lascannons and ML if using the Omniscope. This proved to be effective as I was able to use the gravcannons against armoured infantry and the lascannon against the further away vehicles. It helps recoup some of those points dumped into the unit.

Now what I'm curious about is the ideal number of cents to use. 6 is really overkill, but 3 seems to be a bit too few. I'm going to try 4 in my next game and see if that's the magic number.

Another idea is to go whole-hog and include a dedicated LR to help their survivability and general lack of range with gravcannons. Its a huge investement, but it could potentially really pay off as most armies really struggle to deal with a LR. I'm thinking 4 cents in a LR Redeemer might be pretty effective but damned expensive...I'll try it out next week and report back

it's ok. the one thing I hate is the diminished capacity of the drop pod, now being 10 men instead of the 12. it now prevents me from dropping a pod with a full ten man squad plus two characters.

The old drop pods had no business being 12 man capacity. Same with the Landraider. Two things that Matt got his knuckes wrapped for letting through. The rest of the imperium is now back on even footing, nothing wrong with that.

I've taken 5 less marines than I did last edition (31 to 26)

Old List, just for reference:



And now, my new list:



And heck, that's not even the new hotness. I think that a lot of lists can still do well. Hell, we can even still have 5man suicide squads of meltas with Command Squads (it still adds up to 185pts, and these meltas aren't one shot!)

Though, that Khan Rhino Rush does seem intriguing. I might fiddle around with a few lists in Battlescribe and try it out. Maybe throw a few Ironclads in Pods with HF, or even just a multi-melta / Heavy Flamer Dread, and go to town.

And, on Chapter Tactics: I only have play experience with Ultramarines, but it seems to me that a properly built White Scars list is the king of the Codex. Maybe a Drop Salamanders army can do well as well, but I have a feeling that White Scars are #1 in the book atm. The +1 Jink, HoW S, and the ability to ignore Dangerous Terrain is all pretty amazing. Not to mention Hit and Run allowing them to charge every turn if they so desire.

Thunderfire Cannons being barraged is great as long as there are no ruins in your area that have a roof above them of any form. Nothing sucks more than those squishy units now being able to underneath the building's roof.

LotD got a lot better. They are excellent at dropping down and killing units. They fit best with ultramarines or Vulcan. They are your go-to for deep striking melta/grav now

They don't benefit from Chapter Tactics, so they might just benefit best from Vulkan. I suppose Tigurius / Sicarius ensures they come down, however.

 ClassicCarraway wrote:
Another idea is to go whole-hog and include a dedicated LR to help their survivability and general lack of range with gravcannons. Its a huge investement, but it could potentially really pay off as most armies really struggle to deal with a LR. I'm thinking 4 cents in a LR Redeemer might be pretty effective but damned expensive...I'll try it out next week and report back

You know, a 24" range when deployed in the center is the board is not -that- bad. It can create a nice threat bubble your opponent has to be aware of.

The threat bubble of any unit is movement + range on gun. In the case of cents that 30" (barring difficult terrain move). That's π × r2 in inches. Now, provided half your circle is not off the board, its quite a bit of board coverage you can threaten. It wont get those guys in the back field, but in most games he who controls the center of the board controls the majority of the objectives.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Crazyterran wrote:
Not to mention Hit and Run allowing them to charge every turn if they so desire.

Hit and run is their best trait by far. Few things are as hilarious as watching a CM on bike with a PF/Shield of Eternal bouncing 15" out of a combat, moving 12" and then assaulting another back line support unit that was 30" from the first one. Hes a one man wrecking crew.

Heck, even the rhino rush spam is laughable. Hit and run on every squad means that they cannot be tied up in any assault.

I have to admit, the SM Airforce build labmouse42 posted has interested me.

I may have to play around with lists for it

Hey labmouse42, tell me if I'm off base here, but I don't find suicidal marine units of any type, especially sternguards to be very efficient.

Martel732 wrote:
Hey labmouse42, tell me if I'm off base here, but I don't find suicidal marine units of any type, especially sternguards to be very efficient.

Definitely not sternguard. They are far to expensive for the return. I think they are best now used in a capacity to use special ammo.

LotD are the only real suicide squad I think that could be worth it. Your trading 155 points for 3 potential melta gun shots that ignore cover. Now its likely they won't 'Make their points back', but if you remove key elements from your opponents army then it can have a significant advantage on your entire game.

Lets day that you drop those LotD (preferably with Vulcan) next to some broadsides, and insta-gib 2 of them. You might not have killed 155 points of broadsides but you removed a key element that would otherwise cause your marine army problems. Another example would be killing a buffmander.

Poor uses would be going after a riptide. Yea, you might remove 2 wounds off it, but thats it. Its a pretty poor return.
Someone used them the other day to go after my TFC and should have killed it -- but rolled badly.

Going after targets like land raiders is a rough return on investments. Each melta gun has a pretty small chance of exploding the land raider, and nothing sucks more than dropping 3 meltas next to one and it not blowing it up -- yet it happens quite often. Luckly land raiders are less common now a days.

See a theme in those last 2 examples? Its easy to botch the suicide. That's the risk you pay when your trying to for a suicide squad. Take that LR example. Your 50% likely to not blow up the land raider, and paying 155 points for the suicide. That means that your RoI (return on investment) is bad, as your rarely going to blow up that 250 point target.

Do I use suicide squads? No. Its not my style of play, but I can see a reason that people take them.

I don't use them either. I was just checking your opinion, because I have seen it blow up in my opponent's face time after time. I also have a tendency to build lists where I'm not particularly attached to anything.

It was really bad in 5th when people would drop the dual MM speeder saying "I got that land raider". I can't tell you how many times I saw that botch.

It's usually just a matter of math. The sternguard combi-plasma team shows up, shoots a bunch of my BA that I really didn't care about anyway with plasma, some die, and the next turn, I obliterate his squad. They never get a single turn of special ammo fire. Totally inefficient as far as I can tell.

Martel732 wrote:
It's usually just a matter of math. The sternguard combi-plasma team shows up, shoots a bunch of my BA that I really didn't care about anyway with plasma, some die, and the next turn, I obliterate his squad. They never get a single turn of special ammo fire. Totally inefficient as far as I can tell.

That's somebody that is using Combi-Sternguard poorly. If you are gonna spring for the combi-loadout with Sternguard and DP them in, first you should combat squad them so the fire can be spread to two different units if need be. Second, you simply don't target basic units, you ALWAYS target something a bit more valuable. Third, and this one is more a personal preference, you put Meltas in one of the combat squads in case you want to blow up a transport and then gun down the inhabitants with the plasma.

My preferred DP load out is 10 SG, one combat squad has plasma (2-3), the other has melta (2-3). Target a transport, blow it up with the melta, then shoot the cargo with plasma. You just got first blood (hopefully) and likely took out or crippled a key unit.