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I was just looking for a little feedback on a new marine build I'm thinking of putting together for competition.  The divergents are: purity above all, and heed the wisdom of the ancients, coupled with flesh over steel, and have pride in your colors.  This is a chapter that like to shoot it out with dev. squads instead of with armor.  Preferably I can sit my main force down in a large area of cover.  It also packs five apothacaries for a little extra staying power. Anyway here is the list and please rip it apart for me and tell me what I'm missing. 

Purity Above All/Heed the Wisdom of the Ancients--Flesh Over Steel/Have Pride in your Colors

HQ:

Master-bolt pistol/power weapon, auspex, tank hunters  with a six man command squad consisting of:  1 sgt w/bolter, 2 w/lascannon, 1 apothecary, 1 company champion, 1 company standard.  all with tank hunters.                    344 pts.

Elites:

Venerable Dread  Assault cannon, heavy flamer, tank hunters, drop pod  175 pts.

Venerable Dread  Assault cannon, heavy flamer, tank hunters, drop pod  175 pts.

Troops:

6 man tactical squad w/ apothecary, lascannon, plasma gun 143 pts.

6 man tactical squad w/ apothecary, lascannon, plasma gun 143 pts.

6 man tactical squad w/ apothecary, lascannon, plasma gun 143 pts.

6 man tactical squad w/ apothecary, lascannon, plasma gun 143 pts.

Fast Attack:

Land Speeder Tornado  assault cannon/heavy bolter   80 pts.

Land Speeder Tornado  assault cannon/heavy bolter   80 pts.

Land Speeder Tornado  assault cannon/heavy bolter   80 pts.

Heavy:

6 Man Dev. Squad  2 w/bolter, 4 w/missile launcher  170 pts.

6 Man Dev. Squad  2 w/bolter, 4 w/missile launcher  170 pts.

1846 pts. total

Thank you for any comments or critisisms in advance.

This is a nice setup IMHO

I get the impression that this is a static army list and your not really planning to do much close combat fighting but have enough extra's to keep you in the fight if the enemy assualts you.

The only possible change I would make would be to drop both heavy flamers off the dreadnought and give them storm bolters. No-one in their right mind will go near a dreadnought if they can be hurt by flamers so you may as well put storm bolters on them for the extra range.

Next, drop one of your 6man tactical squads and use the points to make the other three squads into 8man squads.

Use any other spare points to give 1xLascannon to each Devosquad for more anti-tank bustin.


Other than that this is a great list and I'm stealing it and calling it my own whahahahahaa!! (kidding)

Ignore that bit about getting rid of the heavy flamers. They're in drop pods. I hardly ever play a game with my marines where I don't love dropping in and flaming. It's the best way you can use a dreadnought in my opinion.

I really like this list. I don't think the command squad is very necessary since you have the two dev squads and the 6 lascannon. for 320 points you could bring that master with term armor, a powerweapon, stormbolter and a command squad of 4 terminators with 2 assault cannons.

This list is good because you have a great base of las cannon fire and 3 speeders and 2 dropping dreads to claim objectives.

I've never used a list that has all the apothecaries, but I can see it be very effective. The only other thing I can say about this list is that I personally prefer the speeders with heavy flamers and multi-melltas. It's a preference thing and really depends on how much infantry you usually play against, but a strength 5, ap4 template weapon that ignores partial rolls and cover saves is pretty valuable.

the apothecary shooty marine army is pretty tough.

Drop the command saud though, its a waste of points, IMO. Instead, take a Master in Termie armor with a termie command squad, 2 assault cannons, and tank hunters. That gives you a mobile unit that can hurt anything it shoots at, and you will quikly learn that termies get a lot of milage out of the apothecaries. Plus it makes a tough counter assault unit and it can deepstrike if needs be.

Deffinitely keep the heavy flamers on the dreads, they will often get more points back than the assault cannon when you drop. I would ditch the venerable and tank hunter. Keep them cheap, they usually die the turn they drop in. No sense in giving 30 more points to your opponant per dread. With the extra points, bump the dev squads up to 8 men each, at 6 it doesnt take long before you start losing ML's.

But other than that, nice list.

Have just re-read the original post, must have read-over the bit that said about drop pods. (Duh! slaps forehead)

In that case I'd have to agree, if your dropping nearer to the enemy then flamers would be better.

I use an army very similiar to yours. IMHO i have found that it can pretty much run through any army on the board minus some Tau with Crisis suits, Tyranids if they can close the distance and heavy bombardment guard armies.

Using the drop pods to counteract and kill the long range shooter of the guard armies helps you, the drop pods offer little or no relief against Tau and thier vitural 12 inch per round movement. If you dreads make it into close combat somehow his drones will keep the Tau Jabroonies alive. The drop pods against a nidz army is basically gone.

I would also look at using more plasma and lascannon vs rocket launchers. The RL while a cheap veritile weapons comes up woefully short against the tank busting abilty you will need against other marines termies, landraiders, necron monoliths and choas.

otherwise kick butt army

I really like a lot of these ideas and I thank everyone for taking the time to post them. I am thinking of droping the dreads altogether, and changing the Assault Cannon/heavy bolter tornados into the multi-melta/heavy flamer version. I can use these for tank hunting behind enemy lines, and can deep strike them or use speed and cover to my advantage. With the heavy flamers they have some anti-personal potential as a second priority and come in at 5 pts. less each!
With the extra points I can upgrade the dev. squads to plasma cannons and fill them both out to 8 marines each.
From there I'm a little uncertain. I like my command squad, and don't have enough for a termie squad after upgrading the devs. Maybe a vindicator with power of the machine spirit? Hide it until hordes get close then pull it out and dakka them back into the hole they crawled out of?
That leaves me with extra points still. I could add a marine to each tactical squad, or two more to each dev squad. I could add a single multi-melta landspeeder. But have to squadron up two speeders together. Or I could buy some more wargear for my master.

Remember, when you D/S the Speeders, they are counted as having moved more than 12", and can therefor not shoot the turn they arrive (per SM FAQ on GW website). That means that the earliest they will be able to fire is turn 3. Also, they will be a sitting duck doing nothing on the turn they arrive, so it is quite possible that the speeder will die to small arms fire before it gets to do anything if you DS it.

I find the MM/HF Speeder to be one that tries to specialize in two different things, becoming less than superlative at either. To use the HF as anti-infantry, you have to put your AV10 skimmer within rapid fire range of the enemy; it really shouldn't survive the following turn.

Considering how many las-cannons you have elsewhere in the list, I don't think it is worth paying the extra premium they cost in Dev squads. I'd say keep the ML's, though increasing the squad size would probably be a good idea. Right now, it only takes six wounds to force saves on ML models.

Sal

Congratulations on discovering one of the more broken marine lists possible. Enjoy it while it lasts...

You misinterpted the landspeeder rule, the gw faq refers to thier saving throws ie penetration/glacing. When you read the base rule book under deepstriking you will see that a unit may not move or assault but may shoot normally thus allowing the landspeeder to shoot. Same rule applies to assault marines and thier shooting.

Alright I think I have a good compromise. The army list is going to look much like the original with a couple of exceptions:
1) I have removed tank hunters from the HQ command squad and master
2) the dreads will stay but without tank hunters, venerable status, or the heavy flamer. Just bone stock with a drop pod. For trying to bust up rear or side armor on Bassies, or dropping in front of fast moving armies to disrupt them for a turn or two.
3) the three speeders will be plain multi-melta speeders with no heavy flamers and will be used to hunt armor down.
4) the points saved in these areas buy my dev. squads plasma cannons, which I really think are a good fit. They give the army the ability to wipe out terminators en masse as well as MEQs. I also was able to bump the dev. squad size up to seven marines each. I really want eight but there is no more fat to trim off of anything. unless I lower my tactical squads down to five marines.

But I really like this list, and think that it has a lot of potential. I thank everybody for their comments and suggestions. The list looks very close to the original but I think it's actually much better. And I don't see how ColonelEllios can say that this a broken list. I would like to hear him expand on that, because I don't believe it for one second.

I'm going to start putting together the command squad this weekend and experiment with some new colors for the power armor.

its not a broken list at all, its just a tough list, the apothecaries give it a lot of staying power. Let us know how the palsma cannons work out, i never cared much for them in a dev squad. I always prefered HB's and ML's. But with apothecaries they worry less about overheating. The problem is the 36" range and the small blast template will usually only hit 1 termie if they are spaced out at all.



IIRC, the FAQ specifically sates they count as moving over 12" the turn they come in, which also means they cannot shoot per the vehicle rules.

again, i don't agree. I have yet to find one player who agrees with that intereptatration. If you are right, then assault marines could not fire either. Further Assault marines are unable to move over 12 inches. If you read the section in the base rule book it states that ANY skimmer must move over 12 inches in order to gain the always glacing abilty. Since the base rulebook states deepstriking MAY NOT MOVE OR ASSAULT, BUT MAY SHOOT NORMALLY! This is what the FAQ is answering, specifically. Do they recieve the glacing abilty as if they moved over 12 inches. The answer is yes. However the base rule book specifically states it may also shoot, not move or assault. Further adding to my point, this faq would have been put into the general FAQ and not the marines FAQ if your interpretation is correct since monoliths also deep strike!

I am not trying to argue but we can both agree that the rules do sometimes conflict. I wouldn't infer anymore into the FAQ than what it says exactly. I would also use the base rulebook, which refers that they may shoot but not move or assualt. Either way, good luck!

Actually... i have not read the FAQ, but as you are all saying the skimmer counts as having moved more than 12" when it deepstrikes in, then the answer is very clear.

SMF aplies to any skimmer moving over 6", so indeed it can only be glanced. Deepstriking units count as moving, and may not move or assault but 'They may shoot as normal'... this would include any previous restrictions (eg, a Las/Plas squad DS, the Las cannot shoot because they counts aas moving, and is a heavy weapon, and also the Plas and Bolters can only Rapid Fire).

Now, as the FAQ states that the speeder counts as having moved over 12", then it may shoot whichever weapons it would be able to shoot had it been on the table at the beginning of the turn and moved forwards 13". Referring to the table on Page 63 it can clearly be seen that it may fire 'One Main weapon and all defensive weapons' UP TO 12", More than 12" it clearly states it may not fire ANY weapons.

Again, i haven't read the FAQ, so if the FAQ says it counts as moving 12", then it may fire a main and all defensive, if it says that it counts as moving over 12", then it can't fire.

My Apologies for not posting this in the 'You Make The Call' but i just saw it and decided to end this.

I feel you, in a game this complex, it is easy to have contradictory rules. Im not even saying im right, i dont have the FAQ in front of me, but i know all the game clubs in Southern California that i have been involved with interpret the rule that way.




You are confusing vehicle shooting rules with deepstriking rules. Assault marines arrive using deepstrike which overrids their normal movement rules.



Actually its 6"



Right, and normally a vehicle moving over 12" cant shoot.

The FAQ was meant to address both the glancing rule and the shooting rule, IMO.