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I have a bunch of Mariens now from the AOBR box and am getting additional models, Is Marine spam viable? I mean just having 100 marines out there. I was thinking just massive amounts of tactical squads.

Maybe. I faced a CSM army with 6 Rhino mounted squads that went straight for the objectives. Chaos lost since I managed to capture objective by objective.

Not sure how effective it would be in 5th ed, but back in 4th I faced a guy with an Emperors Fist army that was all ground pounding marines backed up by a dread or 2. He had like 50-60 marines of different types on the board led by the cheap captain. It was a good army as there was too many targets and the elimination of any one didn't really hurt that much.

Infantry model heavy Space Marine armies work well, but they key is to use a mix of different squads. Terminators, Assault Marines and Devastators can be used in conjunction with Tactical Marines to good effect. Just "spamming" as many tactical Marines are you can makes for a weak army because you don't have much strength in the way of assaulting or shooting, you've just brought a whole lot of targets! Tactical Marines are a good solid core for an army, but they are just that; the core, you need something more to go with them.

at 2500 Points you can end up with more than 90 models, 85 or more of them being Marines..

Between maxing Tac Squads, with free flamers, and ML's, PW's or Fists, Dev Squads with ML's and LC's. Getting a Razorback for everything and splitting HBs and LCs, you can overwhelm most opponents with too many MEQ and Light Armor targets.

I had a lot of success running 101 Marines at 2000pts. in 4th. I'm still futzing with the new codex for the new version, but I expect it will be similarly potent. In large numbers, the "jack-of-all-trades" aspect of Marines comes into its own.

Whats the most numerical number of Marines that you could possibly take in 2500 anyway since for some reason people like that point total.

I come up with 6 full tacts 3 full assault, 3 full Dev.

it's a rather immobile army (presuming you don't spend any points on transports), but yes the sheer number of 3+ targets it creates will give problems to many many opponents. But now that naked rhinos are cheaper and drop pods are available, I'd be tempted to put just a few units in them, to avoid that 'stuck on the other side of the table' feeling.

Hmm, a half-bikes and half-marines army is also tempting, balancing out the mobility problems of marines alone.

One tactic that works well, pretty much regardless of edition, is to overwhelm your opponents with targets of a given type. All tanks, and his basic shooting attacks are useless. All infantry, and the anti-tank he spent points on is mostly useless.

In my experience an infantry heavy Marine army is certainly viable. I'm not sure it's going to be top tier, but it will definitely play well if you field a solid core of troops, some Devs to support them, and some Assault Marines to counter charge.

If we entertain the idea that marine spam might be viable, it would probably have excellent synergy with Kantor for the +1 attack bonus.

On a related note, can Assault Marines take transport options instead of jump packs?

Yes, they can drop the 'packs and take a Rhino.

As another poster commented you would be better off with a core of tactical marines and then go from there. I think in 2000 id run somewhere between 40-60 depending on what else I wanted to include.

I run 46 Marines at 1500 points. I could probably run more but I don't really need the horde control seeing as that list includes two Thunderfire Cannons. No need for more anti-tank. Full Dev squad with 4 Las Cannons and all seargeants have Meltabombs. Only thing lacking is counter assault. For which I rely upon my Assault based Command Squad and Captain.

... you could get 81 Marines at 1500. And it wouldn't suck either.

Librarian - 100
6 x 10 Tactical Marines, MM/Flamer - 170 (1020)
2 x 10 Assault Marines - 190 (380)

1500 pts

I see st.john 70 posted a all marine army. the article got me thinking. I am asking others for a balanced/winable army list. I know this is not the army list forum. Include tactics how you like to use each unit. not in long detail.

stjohn70 wrote:... you could get 81 Marines at 1500. And it wouldn't suck either.

Librarian - 100
6 x 10 Tactical Marines, MM/Flamer - 170 (1020)
2 x 10 Assault Marines - 190 (380)

1500 pts

try taking out the assault squads and add rhinos to the tacs and the new white scars guy that gives your while army outflank. In 2000pts add tigurius too to add more flexibility with your reserve rolls.

my 1500 pt list lookslike this:

Khan on foot
5 Vanguard + Pwr Wpn
LR Redeemer + extra armour (outflank with a redeemer is a potential game winner)

tac sqd + Missile/plasma x 3 in rhinos

scout sqd (5 men) + 3 sniper, + Hvy Bolter + Telion (Telion is hands down the BEST character option in the new SM Codex)
Land Speeder Storm


compact, highly maneuverable and packs a VERY solid punch.

Khan stays on foot and joins the Vanguard giving them Ini 5 / Str 5 on the charge with power weapons. pile out of the redeemer and clear of enemy held objectives before you race your scout squad over to claim it.

The redeemer is just truly awesome.Template weapon so can clear out Imp Guard going to ground wuth camo cloaks, AP3 so it brns up Necrons and Marines with ease nd of course it's a LR so damn hard to take down. Extra armour makes it pretty much unstoppable since the machine spirit can still fire on a crew shaken damage result.

Mad Dok Wotnot wrote:

stjohn70 wrote:... you could get 81 Marines at 1500. And it wouldn't suck either.

Librarian - 100
6 x 10 Tactical Marines, MM/Flamer - 170 (1020)
2 x 10 Assault Marines - 190 (380)

1500 pts

try taking out the assault squads and add rhinos to the tacs and the new white scars guy that gives your while army outflank. In 2000pts add tigurius too to add more flexibility with your reserve rolls.

my 1500 pt list lookslike this:

Khan on foot
5 Vanguard + Pwr Wpn
LR Redeemer + extra armour (outflank with a redeemer is a potential game winner)

tac sqd + Missile/plasma x 3 in rhinos

scout sqd (5 men) + 3 sniper, + Hvy Bolter + Telion (Telion is hands down the BEST character option in the new SM Codex)
Land Speeder Storm


compact, highly maneuverable and packs a VERY solid punch.

Khan stays on foot and joins the Vanguard giving them Ini 5 / Str 5 on the charge with power weapons. pile out of the redeemer and clear of enemy held objectives before you race your scout squad over to claim it.

The redeemer is just truly awesome.Template weapon so can clear out Imp Guard going to ground wuth camo cloaks, AP3 so it brns up Necrons and Marines with ease nd of course it's a LR so damn hard to take down. Extra armour makes it pretty much unstoppable since the machine spirit can still fire on a crew shaken damage result.

You can't outflank with a vehicle that is not a dedicated transport I dont think Vanguard can buy a Redeemer as a dedicated transport.

Although I am kind of curious as to if you can. I was under the impression that the only tanks that could do it were those bought by term squads as it says they are a dedicated transport.

Why would you need to outflank anyway? Just deploy as normal and drive it across the board. That way there's not a 1/3 chance you'll come out on the wrong side.

Flavius Infernus wrote:Why would you need to outflank anyway? Just deploy as normal and drive it across the board. That way there's not a 1/3 chance you'll come out on the wrong side.

because the flamers have a ludicrously short range and most people put at least 1 obj in their deployment zone and sit on it>?

and yeah, bugger t'sd need to be Termies not vanguard, damn what a shame

Khan is the best for your buck character in the entire book. If you are going to have a captain in your army you might as well take him.

He's just that bad ass.

Rending Instant Death? Yes please.

Masses of marines?That is one though nut to crack, believe me... Especially when, like said above, it is a decent mix of the different varieties of marines...

Even better, split into combat squads! Sure, if someone shoots an appreciable amount of fire at a squad, they'll kill between 3 and all of each combat squad.

But those last 1 or 2 left from each squad? Still scoring, and if they ever want to shoot them, it'll take a whole squad of one of their 10-strong or whatever units to do so. Kekeke.

Not so useful in kp missions but otherwise that's just mean. I've been put in the position of shooting a single lesser daemon on an objective or a squad of khorne berserkers ready to throttle me before. It's not a happy place.

Slightly OT, but Black Templars are well suited for this type of list. 5th edition rules make mixed armor less of a drawback, so a 20 man squad with 10 marines and 10 scouts + fist and melta is only 285 points. Plus they're fearless in CC, run faster when shot at, and the initiates re-roll misses assuming that you take the Accept Any Challenge vow. The Champion and 4 20 man squads cost 1280 points for 81 models, leaving plenty of room for some support units.

With 1020 points you have 6x10 Tac Units with flamer and ML. You need a mínimum 100 for the HQ choice. So at 1500 you still have 380 points for buying upgrades for the Tacs (Rhinos, Fists, LC...) other infantry units (Devastator or Assault Marines would be the obvious choice if you are going all infantry) or maybe tanks if you put the Tacs in Rhinos (A Mech force).

Is it viable to field a lot of Tacs? Of course. Is it necessary? Is it good? I don't really know.

But it looks that you can make a lot of nice lists like the one StJohn posted.

At 2500 points ('Ard Boys for example), you can be looking at more than 80 marines, 9 Razor Backs, etc.

1 Captain, Power Weapon.

6x10 Tacs, Fist, Flamer, ML.
6x 'Backs 3HB 3 TLLC

3x10 Devs, Fist, 4ML each
3 'Backs 1HB 2TLLC

Or there-abouts.

90 MEQ's, 9 AV12's with Smoke, and gun platform. 18PF attacks, 6 flamers, etc.

At 2500 points we are talking about more than 120 Marines. But at 2500 points there are a lot of things really more scary than 120 marines.

Oh, and and this thread people is talking almost about the same topic:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/220935.page

@ Breton
Great static shooty list, but take those pf's from the dev's and put the points into the captain for christ's sake! At least go with the chapter master so you get the orbital bombardment to start with, the relic blade and jump pack would help also. I like those 90 marines, it would work nicely. A few meltaguns in the tac squad r'backs wouldn't hurt either.

A spam list must be built correctly, with Tacticals led by Sergeants with power fists. If on foot, it will generally receive the charge and should field some counter-strike units. But Marines have no hard cc fighters, bar Assault Termies.

Well with combat squad'ing you realistically get another 3 5 man units in a back, with a pf.