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I've recently dug out my Emperor's Children army, and now I'm wondering how to use them. I have a mix of models, some with sonic blasters, blastmasters and doom sirens, some with bolters, some with close combat weapons. All are painted as emperor's children. The question is, how should i organise my squads? Which should be taken as Noise Marines, and which should be taken as normal marines with a Slaanesh icon?

More to the point - is is really worth taking noise marines if you don't want to make use of their sonic weaponry?

6 Noise Marines, no sonic weaponry - 120pts
6 Chaos Marines, Icon of Slaanesh - 110pts

12 Noise Marines, no sonic weaponry - 240pts
12 Chaos Marines, Icon of Slaanesh - 200pts

In the first situation, you pay 10 points for Fearless. In the second, you pay 40 points. Is this worth it? In the first situation, i'd say yes. In the second, no?


How about including sonic weaponry? Are they really worth it? Most noise marine weaponry pushes them towards a mobile, long range, anti-infantry role. The main advantage is that you can move and still lay down a ton of fire. Sonic Blasters are basically boltguns, but Assault 2/3, so you can redeploy 6" and still fire at full range each turn. Blastmasters are the same stats as a hvy bolter, but assault 2. If you choose to stay still, they become a half decent anti-tank or anti-marine weapon.

6 Noise Marines, 5 Sonic Blasters, 1 Blastmaster - 185pts
6 Chaos Marines, Icon of Slaanesh - 110pts

12 Noise Marines, 11 Sonic Blasters, 1 Blastmaster - 335pts
12 Chaos Marines, Icon of Slaanesh, 1 Heavy Bolter - 210pts

Here's a much bigger difference. In the first situation, you're paying 75 points for 12 24" shots as opposed to 12 12" shots (assuming you're moving) and the moving Blastmaster. You also get a fearless squad, and the option that, if you stand still, you gain 6 more 24" shots, and the upgrade of your heavy bolter to (basically) a plasma cannon. If you take this is in 12 man squads, it costs you an extra 125 points, though you can take a Heavy Bolter, which is similar in effect to the Blastmaster. It seems that, in small numbers, you can build a fire support unit much more powerful than usual (since you can take a Blastmaster), but in larger numbers the extra cost becomes huge! Is this worth it??


Now the problem. I have some doom sirens. Doom Sirens are great weapons for assaulting units, but they're a bit odd in the Noise Marine lineup. All of the other noise marine weaponry emphasise their long range fire support role, but Doom Sirens are for close combat units. Basically, they're a heavy flamer with AP3. It seems silly to stick them in a fully tooled up Noise Marine squad - you're paying for Sonic Blasters etc so that they can give long range fire support, not get into combat! So, in order to use them, you should stick them in a close-combat unit, right?? Here goes...

6 Noise Marines, 1 Doom Siren - 135pts
6 Chaos Marines, Icon of Slaanesh, 1 Flamer - 105pts

12 Noise Marines, 1 Doom Siren - 255pts
12 Chaos Marines, Icon of Slaanesh, 1 Flamer - 205pts

In this case, in a close combat unit, you're paying for the flamer upgrade (to S5 AP3) and the ability to be Fearless. In the smaller numbers it costs 30pts, in larger numbers it costs 50. Again, is this worth it?

And of course there's the general question, is a Blastmaster worth 40 POINTS???

I'd love to know how you think Noise Marines should be used, or how you use them yourself....

ArbitorIan wrote:I've recently dug out my Emperor's Children army, and now I'm wondering how to use them. I have a mix of models, some with sonic blasters, blastmasters and doom sirens, some with bolters, some with close combat weapons. All are painted as emperor's children. The question is, how should i organise my squads? Which should be taken as Noise Marines, and which should be taken as normal marines with a Slaanesh icon?

More to the point - is is really worth taking noise marines if you don't want to make use of their sonic weaponry?

No. You take noise marines because you want to use one, or more, of their sonic weapons. If all you want is higher initiative, bring CSM w/ Mark of Slaanesh.

How about including sonic weaponry? Are they really worth it?

Absolutely.

Here are how I've used them.

First, blastmasters go in blastmaster units, and sonic blasters go in sonic blaster units, and never shall the two mix (if you're playing competatively).

Sonic Blasters are a mobile weapon. Yes, you can hold still and fire more, but the strength of the unit is in its ability to move and shoot (and then assault).

Blastmasters are really a heavy weapon that just happens to have an assault setting. You're paying 40 points for a S8, AP3 template with a 48" range. You're not paying 40 points to walk around with a couple of S5 shots.

When you analyze them as such, it's pretty clear that they're at cross-purposes. So, use them like that. A blastmaster squad should be 5 men and one blastmaster. Check that out, it's the one unit that can still min-max and run a heavy gun. Being fearless, they're firing until they're all gone. It's an ideal squad to leave guarding the objective you left in your own deployment zone. It fires clear across the table, and poses a legitimate risk to everything besides land raiders and terminators.

Your Sonic Blaster units, on the other hand, are all about going out and dropping stuff with a hail of, um, soundwaves. I like them in transports, especially, land raiders. The land raider complements the sonic blaster unit nicely, in that you can roll up on your target, hop out, lay down 20 S4 shots, and then assault with about 30 S4 attacks (at I5). That's 50 S4 attacks that will land before most opponents can swing back. That's enough fire to drop just about anything infanty-like.

The other sonic weapon to consider is the Doom Siren. Again, this asks for a transport. You're not going to walk an AP3 Heavy Flamer up to anyone who is paying attention and have it survive. It complements an assault-oriented (read as Land-raider mounted) noise marine squad well, and, like a sonic blaster, lets you assault as a follow-up to the shooting, utilizing the I5 that you're paying for. Or you can drop it into a squad without sonic blasters, and treat them as a bit more conventional assault guys. Or, take a small squad of guys and use it for drive-by shooting out of the back of a rhino. But, it's hard to argue with an AP3 heavy flamer, assuming you can find a delivery mechanism for it.

So, yeah, noise marines are still good. I like them quite a bit in 5th ed, because the volume of fire that your sonic blasters can put out is more valuable than the AP3 bolters of a Thousand Son, now that there are cover saves everywhere, and also you can find 4+ cover pretty easily, so the inv. save that the Ksons have isn't quite so valuable either.

noise marines are fantastic. the amount of firepower they can put out is incredible, but they are glass cannons. they are still only as easy to kill as a marine, except your paying an extra 4pts for the pleasure. take sonic weaponry, there isnt much point in using them if you dont.

i agree with all of what Redbeard said appart from a couple of points.

I play shooty chaos, so my noise marine squads come with sonic blasters and blastmasters. most of the time they dont move around, they just sit on an objective and blast stuff. My view is youre paying 5ps for a Heavy3 bolter that just happens to have an assault setting. However, I have used combat orientated noise marines and they can be devastating, especially comming out of landraiders.

Every time I've tried Noise Marines they've always done exceptionally well. They can fulfill the reserve unit role well since they can provide mobile firepower, static fire support or close assault and do any of them well.... plus their Fearless ability makes them reliable.

One of the reasons why I've been able to use them successfully is that I present other targets for the enemy to shoot at wherever possible. Nurgle Daemon Princes and Plague Marines both work well for this purpose. After all, Noise Marines are as easy to kill as regular Marines; giving the enemy extra targets keeps them kicking butt longer.

I have a pure noise marine list. A couple things worth noting:

1. At 40 points the blastmaster seems expensive, I used to not take one, now I take 3 in 1850. Often times we find ourselves justifying the points cost from 1 to 3 rounds of play. The truth is, since I field them toward the back of my army, they aren't killed untill at least turn 4 if they die at all. With 5ed rules the blast template is brutal. I would say ~120 points killed per blastmaster per game. It can't really kill terminators, big deal, other things can. I have shot armies to pieces by the 2nd turn and all out assaulted the units remained for a consistent 5th turn win.

I get 3 squads of 8 sonic blasters/blast master sitting tight near the middle of the board and have squads of 8 doomsiren/sonic blasaters in rhino's with havoc launchers grab objectives. Once you have seriously crippled the opposing army, move in with the blasters firing assault 2 and clean up. A squad of bikes helps.

A comparison on the squad level can be a bit misleading since an EC has a lot of synergy:
NM squads with sonic blasters for shooty support and Rhino squads incl. an AC with doom siren as a cc (support) unit.

Agreed with the above. I have two configurations I use with my NM.

Fire Support:
6 NM, 5xSonic Blaster, 1xBlastmaster - 185 pts.

Fifteen bolter shots and one AP3 blast out to 24" is pretty good. Two of these units should make for a very effective fire base.

Assault:
8 NM, Champ, Doom Siren, Power Weapon - 205 pts.

I still experiment with Sonic Blasters for these units. They increase the price by a good bit but are only sometimes useful. Kill too many enemy units and they will remove casualties so that you can't reach assault range. I generally just stick with pistols and the Doom Siren. Stick these guys in a Land Raider for instant assault or a Rhino for delayed gratification.

This is all good stuff. How come these guys aren't in a competitive list yet? Has nobody bothered? It seems like you could run a pretty brutal mech list, although the model count would probably be even lower than Lash/PM lists.

Well, two winged lash DPs accompanied by two Rhino squads of NM each of which led by an AC w/ doom siren is a pretty good start, since lash and doom siren work well against most enemy units bar Terminators.

This is all great stuff. If you are worried about termies still, a Vindicator hidden in cover with range to wear the NM would work wonders. If the Vindi template doesn't get them all, 15 bolter shots and the Blastmaster will (at minimum squad size). I am rewriting my Chaos list right now after reading this!

As a note, Slaanesh/Nurgle does work very well together. Nurgle is tough, but lacks hitting power and any ranged firepower to mention. Slaanesh provides the latter in spades, and doom siren assault squads, particularly coming out of a Land Raider, are usually sufficiently nasty.

Just for reference, here was my ArdBoyz list. Not necessarily applicable, but it shows how such a list could work, and I took 1st and 3rd respectively in the first two rounds.

Sorcerer, MoS, Lash
Sorcerer, MoS, Lash
8 PMs, 2 meltas, Champ with Fist, Rhino
8 PMs, 2 meltas, Champ with Fist, Rhino
8 PMs, 2 meltas, Champ with Fist, Rhino
7 Noise Marines, 6 sonic blasters, blastmaster, Rhino
7 Noise Marines, 6 sonic blasters, blastmaster, Rhino
7 Noise Marines, 6 sonic blasters, Champion with Doom Siren
Land Raider, Daemonic Possession
3 Oblits
3 Oblits

The Rhinos for the NMs were really just there for rhino walls/blocking/tank shocks, and if necessary moving the NMs around, but I found otherwise they didn't really need them. The assaulty NMs were key in killing off tough MEQ squads and often had more than enough attacks to put large dents in Ork squads, though I will admit I was tempted to replace them with a Berserker squad. The PMs were ideal objective holders and can deal with anything reasonably well.

I use the 8 noise marines w 8x sonic blasters combo westenfaux used in his battlerep. It is one of the few units that never fails to impress.

Like somebody say they are fragile for their points and if you play the same people often they will try to take them out quick.