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Holy Purging Heretic Smiting Fists of Vengeance and Justice 500 pts Task Force

HQ

Captain with plasma pistol, power fist and artificier armour.
155 pts

Troop

Tactical squad
10 marines with plasma pistol, plasma gun and plasma cannon.
200 pts

Tactical squad
8 marines with plasma pistol.
143 pts

OR

Tactical squad
5 marines with plasma pistol.
105 pts

Rhino
35 pts

OR

Drop Pod
35 pts

498 pts OR 495 pts

You do need one of those marine squad in a Rhino for some mobility. The Captain seems like a lot of points... are you sure that 155? The 10 Marines w/PC + PG can combat squad and the PC can hold back, the other charges, and the Rhino + Captain gets close.

500 is such a small points total, every little bit of kit counts, for sure! I second the suggestion for mobility, but I'd like to put forward a slightly different list, based on your first list, and adding just one vehicle, and moving some gear around.

Captain - Relic Blade, Hellfire Rounds 140 points
Tactical x 10 - Plasma Pistol, Melta Bombs, Plasmagun, Plasma Cannon 205 points
Tactical x 5 - Powerfist, Razorback (T-L Heavy Bolter) 155 points

500 points total

Okay, let me explain what I did there

The Captain is a great CC character, especially at this points level. A Chaplain might be better at straight combat, but a Captain is great at shooting, too. He has a better initiative than a regular trooper or a Chaplain, but the same Strength. To this end, I gave him a Relic Blade so he can strike first (usually), and with a good Strength of 6 (still wounding on 2+ against MEQ) and ignoring armor. A Powerfist does have the advantage of possible insta-kill on T4, but if the Captain gets hit by a full Tactical squad, they might do enough wounds to take him down before he ever strikes back.

So, I wanted to make sure you still had the Powerfist, because you DO need at least one, and to that end, I buried it in the 5 man Tac squad. I found, when checking the codex on this, that Drop Pods can only be taken by 10 man squads, but even a 5 man squad can get a Rhino or Razorback. I tossed in a bare-bones Razor because not only can the squad take it, you can attach the Captain and give him a lift, too. This will allow you to get up in your opponent's "grill" much earlier and safer. I gave the Captain Hellfire rounds to get some extra oompf on the disembarking round. He'll hit on 2+, wound on 2+ against anything, even Demon Princes. The squad will be able to bolter-shock with 5 boltguns and a boltpistol (11 shots) plus 2 more from the Captain's boltgun at 2+2+, then, when you charge, you have the Captain striking first with the big Relic Blade, the 4 Tactical marines striking in 4, and the buried Powerfist at 1. If an opponent targets your Captain and kill him, the Fist is still comin'! The Razorback also adds a twin-linked Heavy Bolter to the list for anti-horde.

Some other good options I considered (and you may like more) would be to drop Hellfire rounds, and the Relic Blade back to just a Powersword/Bolt Pistol on the Captain (-25 points) and replace the PF Sarge with Plasma Pistol (-10) and get a Rhino for Tactical 1, but I think they do great just walking when needed at this points level.

You might also drop HF rounds and get a Combi-Melta on the PF Sarge. I'll leave all that up to your consideration.

I need to play some 500 point games again, it's been too long.

Thank you so much for putting so much time, thought and consideration into that post! I'll definitely take notice of your points; you've thought through pretty much all the angles there are. However, I think the new codex says a plasma-ed out squad costs 200 pts, not 240 as you listed them, unless I'm wrong, in which case I don't mind you correcting me. Regardless; many thanks, I'll let you know what army list I settle on and how it works out for me.

Oh, my bad, I transferred the number from my paper list wrong.

Tactical x 10 - PC, PG, PP is 200, and I also should have listed Melta Bombs on that Sargent (Dreadnought insurance). I'll edit my first post. Sorry for the confusion.

As a side note, today I played a teaching game with a friend of mine whom I'm trying to get interested in the game. I played using my wife's Eldar, and let him use my Space Marines. We played a modified 500 point game to have only 1 troop and 1 HQ required. The lists were so:

Space Marines:
Captain, Powersword, Digital Weapons
Tactical x 10 Rocket Launcher, Flamer
Terminators x 5 Heavy Flamer

Eldar:
Farseer, Runes of Witnessing, Spirit Stones, Fortune, Guide
Warlock x 2 (yes, I know it's supposed to be 3+, but hey) Enhance, Conceal, Spear x 1
Dire Avengers x 10, Exarch w/ PW/Shimmershield
Howling Banshees x 6, Exarch, Executioner, War Shout, Acrobatic


We played with one objective in the middle, Spearhead deployment, any unit can score (to simplify things a bit). I won't go into too much detail, but we had a great game of it! It all came down to the Captain squaring off with the Dire Avengers and Farseer over the objective, and a 1 model Space Marine win. But really, it's just inspired me to start up a 500 point campaign with my regular group, hopefully including the new guy.

Good luck with your own, I would still use the list I suggested to you if I was going against regular players, I specifically set this battle as infantry only, in a formal 500 point, you WANT the transport.

Holy Purging Heretic Smiting Fists of Vengeance and Justice 500 pts Task Force

HQ

Captain with relic blade, boltgun, hellfire rounds and artificier armour.
155 pts

Troops

Tactical squad 1
10 marines with chainsword, melta bombs, plasma gun and plasma cannon.
190 pts

Tactical squad 2
8 marines with chainsword and plasma pistol.
153 pts

498 pt

The captain joins tactical squad 2 and tactical squad 1 combat squads with chainsword, melta bombs and plasma gun in one and plasma cannon in the other. Tactical squad 2 and chainsword combat squad charge into cc, rapid firing all the way with melta bombs for any tanks and plasma cannon provides covering fire. What do you think? No transport I'm afraid, having a Drop Pod in my 1000 pts for captain and melta squad though

Well, them's the breaks I suppose! Play what you can and make the most of it, I say. At least with the new Run rule your infantry has a better chance to keep up and get to those objectives.

The one thing you might have trouble with is if roll up a Capture and Control (home bases) Spearhead, and your opponent puts his objective all the way at the back corner. Running flat out for 5+ turns still might not get you there.

I suppose in that instance I would go for a VP win. If, after a few matches, that does prove to be a problem then I will lose 3 men and get a Rhino or Razorback. Thanks for your help.

I've decided to use an altered version of your list, I've substituted the plasma pistol for artificier armour for my captain. I'm concerned about using the plasma squad though; I don't want to combat squad it and provide my opponents with easy kill points but I can't see it working well if I'm trying to get the melta bombs into cc while using the plasma cannon at range :S Any suggestions? I also may take a Rhino instead of a Razorback because I don't want to buy the Razorback model and only use it at 500 pts, would rather get a Rhino I can use as my army grows and spend the remaining 5 pts on melta bombs, I wouldn't know where to put them though :S

In your suggested list you put the melta bombs in the plasma squad, would it not be best to put them with the power fist sergeant in the Razorback as he'll be able to get to any tanks to take them out quicker?

If you're going to take out Necrons you need a very far range squad, that is they're downfall, what about a small Devastator squad, then the Necrons can't ressurect either. They're also useless in close combat unless with a Lord. Which they will have as a Necron 500pts is 2x10 Warriors (360pts) and 1 Lord with no wargear (100pts) + 40pts left over.

The extra 40 pts has been used on a Ressurection Orb, reducing the effectivity of the Devastators I had. I also find it difficult to get line of sight with Devastators.

Here is the list I have settled on, thanks to GeneralRetreat:
Holy Purging Heretic Smiting Fists of Vengeance and Justice 500 pts Task Force

HQ

Captain with relic blade, boltgun and artificier armour.
145 pts

Troops

Tactical squad 1
10 marines with chainsword, plasma gun and plasma cannon.
185 pts

Tactical squad 2
5 marines with power fist, combi-melta, melta bombs and Razorback.
170 pts

500 pts

Can snipers pick out individual targets, if so, use them with a heavy bolter in the lord, without wargear he can only ressurect with one wound.

The squad will be able to bolter-shock with 5 boltguns and a boltpistol (11 shots) plus 2 more from the Captain's boltgun at 2+2+, then, when you charge, you have the Captain striking first with the big Relic Blade, the 4 Tactical marines striking in 4, and the buried Powerfist at 1.

SM may not use a bolter in the same turn as they assault. If you wanted to fire and assault you must use their bolt pistols which gives each marine a single shot at 12"

phantommaster wrote:Can snipers pick out individual targets, if so, use them with a heavy bolter in the lord, without wargear he can only ressurect with one wound.

no they can't thats only the vindicare assassin

The list looks pretty good, be wary of your plasmas overheating, I would advise a ML instead of a PC, but the PC can be very effective, but has the drawback of overheating. A meltagun might also serve you better instead of a plasmagun just because it, again, won't overheat and still packs AP and STR punch.

Melta has low range and ML low AP, thanks though