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i am going to a local tourney here and i have been getting spanked by the locals. lots of different armies here and lots of heavy players. only army we never see is the inquisition or battle sisters. normally i play nids or orks, sometimes eldar, and my marines have been gathering dust. everyone here talks smak about marines and how they suck (they do suck but i love em anyway) so being a competitor and not a cheese list lover that only plays lists that win, i want to smak down the locals that only play stuff like the new orks and mech tau etc. there have been a lot of nob bikers and warboss on bike lately so i am tweaking to deal with this. which list do you like better, what would you change and why. thanks for the help.

Master of sanctity w/powerfist, Bp, Frag and Krak grenades, auspex 131 pts

8 Elite w/ vet with fist, powerfist marine and powersword marine, the rest with BP and CCW, all with furious charge 214 pts
5 Terminator w/ 2 AC Tankhunters 255pts

2x6 tac marine squads each with Las/Plas 230 pts

6 dev w/ 3 HB 135pts
2x6 man dev w/ 3 ML each 300pts

2 Tornado w/ ac/hb 160pts
tornado w/ Melta/Hflamer 75pts

or

Master of sanctity w/ jumppack, Bp, 121 pts
8 Assault marine, vet with fist, 2 flamers 218pts

5 Terminator w/ 2 AC 240pts

5 scouts 4 w/ sniper rifles, 1 w/ HB
2x6 tac marine squads each with Las/Plas 230 pts

6 dev w/ 3 HB 135pts
2x6 man dev w/ 3 ML each 300pts

2 Tornado w/ ac/hb 160pts

the first list has a greater chance of killing big nids, warboss on bike and nobs with the shear number of powerfists and re-rolls it gets on the charge. its also got more AC.
the second list has mobile assault capability that is hard to kill. the snipers give me some flexiblity etc. whats your opinion.

The only marine skills that really mean anything are tank hunters and true grit/counter-attack.

Your elite marines are too slow. You should always be assaulted, or shot off the board.

Las/plas squads of 6 are favored by most people. I'm not most people. I have a better use for the 25 points per squad.

Dev squads should be heavy bolter squads 99% of the time. Missiles are neat, but don't really cut it for marines.

Scouts are good only in all-scout lists, where the range and weight of fire is telling.

If you are going to bring terminator with AC, bring tank hunters. It has statistical use. Personally, last time I was scared of terminators was in rogue trader days.

Tornados are sadly your only vehicles so most armies 2 lascannons will blow them to pieces PDQ.

With marines, here's what you need to include to be successful:

A librarian with veil of time, with a combat shield and a jump pack.

Chaplains are sh*t.

Masters are great for making you pass target priority. Now if only that was really useful in most marine lists, which don't get to be 'uber' shooty until they hit 2500 points. Yes, you can stay in close combat until they kill you to a man. Big woop.

Terminators have a problem. They can deep strike. Most players try to deep strike them, and they arrive to find the rest of the marine army getting shot off the table. Then they get shot off. Then it's not as fun anymore.

You want to run a serious 1500 point marine list? Allright, I'll post one for you in a minute.

You have 6 lascannons, 3 with tank hunters. This is enough to immediately shut down heavy tank armies.
You also kill 1 MC per turn at 48". This upsets tyranids.

You have 2 heavy bolter units with tank hunters. These will hurt most vehicle squadrons, almost anything AV10, and will kill most infantry without any problems.

The 3 tactical squads are your hidden reserve of close combat goodness--keep your marines centralized and invite multiple assaults, they'll beat off most enemies 1 and 2 squads with 1 character supporting assault elements. You can 'speed bump' your veterans as well, or simply toss more bodies in as needed. You can equip the vets with CCW+BP if you want, or keep them as bolters. Either way is free.

Remember every army is built to kill yours. Give them too many targets to deal with, and so long as you have a great clump of marines most assaults won't get very far.
Save the Librarian when you need a unit eliminated. He'll carve up most enemies. I usually give him a thunder hammer in addition to his BP, toss a couple tactical marines out and he'll have it. He can take the hits and deal the pain on everything in the game. Just remember he's expensive, and you only have one...

1500 Pts - Space Marines Roster - 1500

1 Epistolary @ 227 Pts
Frag Grenades; Bolt Pistol (x1); Force Weapon; Fear of the Darkness; Psychic Hood; Veil of Time
1 Adamantine Mantle @ [35] Pts
1 Artificer Armor @ [20] Pts
1 Combat Shield @ [10] Pts
1 Jump Pack @ [20] Pts
1 Psychic Hood @ [0] Pts

4 Veteran Squad @ 105 Pts
Bolter (x3); Lascannon (x1); Tank Hunters
1 Sergeant @ [18] Pts
Bolter; Tank Hunters

4 Veteran Squad @ 105 Pts
Bolter (x3); Lascannon (x1); Tank Hunters
1 Sergeant @ [18] Pts
Bolter; Tank Hunters

4 Veteran Squad @ 105 Pts
Bolter (x3); Lascannon (x1); Tank Hunters
1 Sergeant @ [18] Pts
Bolter; Tank Hunters

5 Devastator Squad @ 168 Pts
Bolter (x1); Heavy Bolter (x4); Tank Hunters
1 Sergeant @ [18] Pts
Bolter; Tank Hunters

5 Devastator Squad @ 168 Pts
Bolter (x1); Heavy Bolter (x4); Tank Hunters
1 Sergeant @ [18] Pts
Bolter; Tank Hunters

8 Tactical Squad @ 207 Pts
Bolter (x7); Lascannon (x1)
1 Sergeant @ [48] Pts
Power Fist (x1); Bolter; Terminator Honors

8 Tactical Squad @ 207 Pts
Bolter (x7); Lascannon (x1)
1 Sergeant @ [48] Pts
Power Fist (x1); Bolter; Terminator Honors

8 Tactical Squad @ 207 Pts
Bolter (x7); Lascannon (x1)
1 Sergeant @ [48] Pts
Power Fist (x1); Bolter; Terminator Honors

Total Roster Cost: 1499

I like the second list you posted. It gives you a great fire base and a solid count charge unit. You also nailed the most important aspects of unit building and even marine building in general. Those are even number squads as well as no more than 50% of eachsquad should have special weapons.

How ever there are 2 small changes I would make to it. First I would Drop 2 assault marines to give the sniper squad a missile launcher instead of the heavy bolter (snipers are good at hurting big things so why not give them something that can also be effective there). With the remaing 39 pints I would give the Master of Sanctity an Adamantium Mantle. This will ensure that he surrvies long enough to inflict considerable damage on MCs. If possible I would either give him a fist or Thunder Hammer as they will greatly increase his chances of killing MCs and other characters.

thanks for the heads up gang. i play ultras so i wont be able to use the tank hunters ability the way it is suggested, though i will be able to bring the rest to the table. i do have a jump librarian like the one mentioned and have considered using him in place of the chaplain, but the chaplain is nearly as good and much cheaper.
im going to consider the adamantium mantel. makes a lot of sence.

Chaplain is nowhere near as good as the librarian.

Being unable to wound is the chaplains drawback.

A librarian will get more hits over time in a combat, and he'll get more wounds.

Chaplain gets re-rolls to hit 1st round, and at that point the librarian takes over and gets re-rolls forever on to hit and to wound.

It does make a huge difference.

thanks again. i am going to work with the list and see if i can tailor it to something a little closer to what you suggest.
hows this.

1 Epistolary @ 227 Pts
Frag Grenades; Bolt Pistol (x1); Force Weapon; Fear of the Darkness; Psychic Hood; Veil of Time
1 Adamantine Mantle @ [35] Pts
1 Artificer Armor @ [20] Pts
1 Combat Shield @ [10] Pts
1 Jump Pack @ [20] Pts
1 Psychic Hood @ [0] Pts

2x6 Devestator with 3 HB each 135ptsx2

3x6 Elite w/ Las cannon/Plasma rifle and tank hunters 133 ptsx3

8 Tac w/ las/Plas, vet w/ fist 175pts
2x8 Tac w/ ML/flamer, vet w/fist 166x2pts

5 scouts w/ 4 sniper rifle, 1 w/ML.

i dont have enough money to go out and buy that many Las cannon and the fact that i play ultras is pretty restrictive on the playability of the list as far as traits go.
i am amazed that someone else out there sees the utility of the jump librarian and i actually have one with a storm sheild though i usually add a familiar for even greater init. would i be better off to just drop the flamers from the tac squads. I could drop in two mulitmelta in place of the ML but the lack of range is a concern. especially with tau on the rise around here. thanks again for the time and effort helping me revise the list.

Wait till you have the money, then upgrade to lascannons.

Check the dakkadakka swap section, see if you have anything people want for some lascannons.

Oh and I don't think you should swap around until you can afford more stuff.

I bring the Librarian with the mantle, jump pack, combat shield, viel, artificer armor, force weapon, and thunder hammer so he can dish out the damage against anything.
Even if he doesn't get a 6 vs V14, he's given it a stun result.
He's not very good against c'tans or monoliths, but he can avoid both and chop up anything the necrons have to offer. 2+ armor save re-rolled beats most necron army lists by itself...most don't bring heavy destroyers.

Having fear of the darkness makes him really annoying for alot of armies.

Anyway he's really good for what he does.

I would disagree with the comments made on the Librarian. I tend to use them a lot and love them but they are not as good as a Jump Pack Chaplain leading an Assault squad. Yes it is true that if the Librarian locked in HtH with veil will do more wounds than the chaplain he lacks 2 important things. first and most importantly and invulnerable save. This is a MUST for a Librarian as the majority of what will damage/kill him will ignore armor. Second the Chaplain is Fearless and will pass that along to the unit. This is a huge boost in games where you will wind up getting overrun by enemy units or those few times when your dice are just not being your friends.

Keep the second list do go throwing money into anything new until you find the problems with the list you are currently playing. Slowly adjust the list until you are comfortable with it.

So, since the librarian has a invulnerable save we'll just discount everything negativemoney said about that.

Smurf librarians don't usually lose close combat, since they kill everything, but I guess if you stick him out there by himself you can lose him in a crowd.

The Librarian is overpriced for what he can achieve.
Fear of Darkness requires that he comes close to the enemy.
He's fast with jump packs but unsupported as the rest of the army is footslogging.
Thus he might become the closest enemy and hence targettable.
Better give him fury of the ancients, vot, inv save, bolt pistol, and bike.
Then he can cast behind his lines and counter strike (supported by one of our
tacticals) if required.

Why would he be near the enemy? He's purely a countercharge unit, and he's supposed to sit behind the tactical squads...

Guess I'm confused.

So against most things the librarian should be trying to get regular wounds with the basket of rerolls from veil instead of trying to mind-punk someone with the force weapon? Interesting. I'm thinking about dual librarians for my blood ravens. Would this list work with the slight modding of taking the purity above all trait and plas cannon/gun tacticals? (probably dropping one dev group)

Use a Smurfs force weapon to...kill someone?

HAHAHAHAHAAHA.

Sorry, it just came out.

You could do purity above all, but plasma cannon/plasma gun tactical squads are crap against alot of armies (say, every mech force and every non-marine non-MC list).

ok.
having done some math-hammer and all i have decided on the chaplain. here is the finished list. what are your thoughts, and thanks to all who have helped me with my list building, stelek and all, thanks.

1500pts
Master Of Sanctity, adamantium mantel, artificer armor, jump pack, Bp, frag grenades, Power fist. 202pts

10 Assault Marines, Veteran sgt w/ powerfist, 2 marines armed with flamers. 262pts

2x6 Elite w/ Lascannnon and Plasmarifle, tank hunters, the rest armed with Bp/Ccw 266pts

2x6 Devestator marines, 3 each with HB 270pts
6 Devestator marines w/ 3ML. 150pts

2x8 Tactical marines w/ veteran sgt w/ powerfist and lascannon/ plasma rifle each squad 350pts

59 marines, loads of long range fire power and a devestating close combat squad.

any final comments would be appreciated. thanks again.

Stelek wrote:Oh and I don't think you should swap around until you can afford more stuff.

I bring the Librarian with the mantle, jump pack, combat shield, viel, artificer armor, force weapon, and thunder hammer so he can dish out the damage against anything.
Even if he doesn't get a 6 vs V14, he's given it a stun result.
He's not very good against c'tans or monoliths, but he can avoid both and chop up anything the necrons have to offer. 2+ armor save re-rolled beats most necron army lists by itself...most don't bring heavy destroyers.

Having fear of the darkness makes him really annoying for alot of armies.

Anyway he's really good for what he does.

Wait, so are you saying you play it that you can use veil of time during your opponent's movement phase and it last until the end of your turn? And if you fail that roll you could still use it at the beginning of your turn? I always just assumed the power could only be used on the marine turn... guess it doesn't actually say that, huh. Do people consider usning veil at the start of the enemy turn cheesy?

P. S. Thunder Hammer on causes shaken, not stunned.

Shaken, stunned...so long as it isn't shooting, who cares. Everyone but Tau has extra armor anyway.

GW changed the psychic rules from 'per turn' to 'per player turn' a while ago.

So you can use powers anytime you want, so long as the text doesn't prevent you from doing so. i.e. If it says YOUR shooting phase, you can't do it during MY turn. If it just says 'any phase' and not specifically your own...well, you can now.

Quoted:

Q. When a rule says “once per turn” (like in the case of
master-crafted weapons, psychic powers, etc.), does
this mean once per player turn or is it once per game
turn?
A. Always assume the word “turn” to mean “player turn”,
unless the text specifies game turn. This is not true,
however, of the “Organising a battle” section of the rule
book, where the opposite is true (so in this section “turn”
means “game turn”).