Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I've got a tournament coming up in a couple of weeks, and I'm toying with the idea of a SM army that gives up a bit of firepower to get more bodies on the field with the idea that a lot of SM can be hard to kill. It's a little bit light on Anti-Tank weaponry, but I'm hoping there'll be enough to squeeze by. Right now the list is only 1703 pts, so I've got 47 points to spend to fill it out.

1703 vanilla marines:

Master (SB & CCW - Ld 10) 81 pts

Tact squad (10 men, LC/PG) 175 pts
Tact squad (10 men, LC/PG) 175 pts
Tact squad (10 men, LC/PG) 175 pts
Tact squad (10 men, LC/PG) 175 pts

Asslt squad (9+ vet sgt, 2 PP, vet has pf) 260
Asslt squad (9+ vet sgt, 2 flamers NO Jumpacks, vet has pf) 192 (counter assault unit to stay near tact squads)

Dev Squad (6 men, 4xML)
Dev Squad (6 men, 4xHB)
Dev Squad (6 men, 4xHB)

Total: 1703 pts (47 left) and 79 marine bodies in 1750 pts.


As mentioned, I'm not sure what to do with the remaining 47 pts, but my first thought is to buy 3 more marines to fill the ML dev squad to give it more staying power (IE ablative wounds) and have 82 bodies.

Does anyone have any thoughts about how well this army would work in a less-than cut-throat environment? The people that game in my area aren't the best min-maxers in the world, and thus aren't likely to have the most efficient or powerful lists available. I expect to go up against Orcs, Space Marines (vanilla and possibly BT or SW), Necrons, and possibly Eldar or IG.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated!
-Dwarf

Well, in the current edition, I'd take 6 men las/plas squads.
A core of 4 las/plas squads should suffice.
They are the latest, the enemy will target.
With the free points, you could add some Scouts.

Yes, in theory I could field squads of Mauleed-pattern marines (the 6-man las/plas squads), but that wasn't the point of the army or the question. The idea as I said was to field as many bodies as possible to make it harder for my opponents to kill me off, or take squads below scoring size.

Has anyone tried this with marines before, and is it effective enough to be at least semi-competative?

-Dwarf

There's nothing wrong with this really, but you probably want more bodies in the dev squads so losing men doesn't take off heavy bolters.

If you want to field more bodies, take scouts instead of assault marines. Put 3 snipers + a heavy b in a squad of 10, and it can shoot a little while still being a counter attack unit. Unlike assault marines...