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Ok heres what i have, 1500 point army
i wanna know what needs to go and what needs degraded or upgraded and such

Commander Master crafted power fist and terminator honours and stormbolter
Full command squad with heavy bolter and melta gun

Dreadnought with assault cannon

5 full tactical squads, 3 with heavy bolters, one with lascannon, and one with missle launcher

10 man dev squad with heavy bolter, las cannon, and multi-melta


the more i read other threads, a lot of people are going for a power weapon or fist in tactical squads, is this a good idea?
also i have a whirlwind on the way from GW should i find a way to put it into my army?

Give the Cmd squad infiltrate and a Rhino for outflanking.
The Dev squad should get 4 missile launchers, as they are anti-tank and anti-light-infantry.
Power fists are Dreadnought insurance, each full tactical squad should have one.

Commander should have a power sword + BP or lightning claws. Remember that he is your only I5 guy. Don't waste it for a I1 weapon.

Don't mix anti-infantry and anti-tank weapons in dev squads.

All tactical squads need special weapons. Plasma guns are preferable but flamers work too.

I like power fists more than power weapons in tactical squads in case you run into a Daemon Prince or Dreadnought.

First off, what do you want your army to do over all? Do you want to be a stand and shoot army? Do you want to be an up close and personal army? Do you want to be an assault army? What do you want to do? Or if that's too hard, at least figure out what you want each squad to do. You can't have your squads do everything because if you try, they end up half assing it and not being really good at anything.

Lets start here...

Pinky666 wrote:Commander Master crafted power fist and terminator honours and stormbolter
Full command squad with heavy bolter and melta gun

Ok, commanders are hand to hand units and that's about it, ever. So he's got a power fist...that's fine. Some people like lightning claws better and that's perfectly viable too. A storm bolter is a good weapon while you are marching forward, but you may not get to ever shoot it if you are running and really trying to get up close so you may want to save the points. A heavy bolter is useless if you are moving forward just like a power fist is useless if you are standing around in your deployment zone. One or the other probably should go. Melta guns are great tank killers...at 6". So you are going to need to move this guy up into the face of a tank if you want to put this gun to use.

See what I mean about deciding what your unit is going to be doing? So since this is looking mostly like a forward unit, ditch the heavy bolter. If you can grab another special weapon (flamer, melta, plasma) then do so, otherwise a regular bolter that can fire twice at 12" will be much more useful than a heavy bolter that can't ever fire because you are always moving.

5 full tactical squads, 3 with heavy bolters, one with lascannon, and one with missle launcher

Again, you need to figure out what you are going to do with these guys. If they are just there for the heavy weapons, then smaller squads are the way to go (assuming you are using the regular marine codex that allows you to take 5 or 6 man squads with a heavy weapon). If you are playing with one that allows combat squading, then that's probably what you are looking at doing here. The idea is that 5 men with one heavy weapon sitting in your back field is pleanty to get the job done. They can sit in cover and shoot at long range all day and not have to worry too much about things comming after them. The added bonus is that you're not wasting a lot of points for bolter guys that are sitting in the back doing nothing or wasting points on a heavy weapon that isn't shooting if you move forward. Now, you may want to set up at least one squad as a forward unit. In that case, ditch the heavy weapon and get a special weapon (or two if you can swing that option) and send them forward. The special weapons can fire on the move and you can get close to make use of them. It will also provide back up for your command squad that's going to be moving forward.

As for what heavy weapons to use, for the most part, I find that giving tac squads anti tank weapons like las cannons and missile launchers tends to work out best since you can possibly kill a vehicle in one shot. This leaves other parts of your army with multiple heavy weapons (like devistators) free to do anti troop killing where the extra guns really help out.

10 man dev squad with heavy bolter, las cannon, and multi-melta

It hurts, it hurts...oh the pain. Ok, now that I'm done making fun of this squad, let me help you fix it. First off, if you shoot at a tank with the squad, the heavy bolters shots are wasted and there is a good chance that the multi melta is out of range (and there's no chance that the multi melta will ever be within 12" of an enemy tank....EVER). On the other hand, if you are shooting at troops, the heavy bolters will do some decent damage, the las cannon will probably miss or get negated by a cover save (or at best kill 1 guy), and the multi melta will probably be out of range. If for any reason you try to move the squad forward (like to get the multi melta in range) you will have wasted 4 heavy weapons worth of shooting, so don't do it.

What you need to do is pick a role for the unit and give it weapons to do that role. If you want anti tank power (and in devistators, its usually overkill) take las cannons. If you want light troop killing take heavy bolters, if you want heavy troop killing take plasma cannons, if you want to half ass things and bring generalist weapons then missile launchers are the way to go.

the more i read other threads, a lot of people are going for a power weapon or fist in tactical squads, is this a good idea?
also i have a whirlwind on the way from GW should i find a way to put it into my army?

Power fists are great in forward tactical squads. Those units are likely to end up in hand to hand and the power fist does a number on heavy infantry, vehicles, monstrous creatures and much much more. It's hard to go wrong with them. However for back field heavy weapon units, they are pointless since those units won't be in hand to hand.

oh i feel stupid, i forgot the most important part of my post, i wanted it to be a 3/4 assault army and 1/4 heavy weapons.
I want to push into the other army with my assault troops and move my heavies up to control more of the field. I probably didnt explain it how i meant but hopefully someone will figure it out.
And i like all those ideas, but this may change some of them.

i wanted it to be a 3/4 assault army and 1/4 heavy weapons.

Against some armies (Chaos, Orks, Nids) it is better to play counter-assault; they require more heavy guns.

Pinky666 wrote:oh i feel stupid, i forgot the most important part of my post, i wanted it to be a 3/4 assault army and 1/4 heavy weapons.

Ok, for that kind of build, you'll want 2 or 3 small tac squads with las cannons sitting back in your deployment zone to take care of tanks (again, either buy 5-6 man squads or if you are using a newer codex, a 10 man that you combat squad). Then take a devistator squad with either missile launchers, heavy bolters, or plasma cannons (depending on what you are really planning on killing) and that should cover your heavy weapons. After that, tool up your command squad with whatever power weapons/fists you can and throw in some flamers or plasma guns (not pistols) for flavor. Then take some 10 man tac squads with power fists and either flamers or plasma guns to move up for hand to hand (after some short ranged shooting). You might also want to look into getting some assault marines since they tend to do much better than tac marines in hand to hand but you seemed to indicate that you didn't have the models for that so I haven't really considered it here.

I have a little bit of everything in meaning of models. may need a flamer or something like that but i have just about every squad listed, so if theres something else i should add just tell me.