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Hey there. I have a group of Noise Marines that I would like to make more combat orientated than shooty (If it's worth it)
I was wondering if anyone has any ideas that might be the best way to equip them.
I was thinking 8-9 man squad, Champion, Power Weapon & Possibly Melta Bombs, but that seems a bit weak to me.
(I was thinking of putting a IC with them & mounting them in a Land Raider, that's why I'm only putting 8-9 in a squad, is it worth it?)
I figure that there is not much point giving them a Power Fist as they have the high initiative.
Also, if i start adding more stuff, i.e- Doom siren they start to get kinda expensive, so I'm thinking i might as well just add another squad of Plague Marines to my Army if I'm gonna do that, as they are harder to kill with no upgrades.
Any thought's on this?
Comments Welcome.

Assault noise marines will kill more stuff than plague marines. Plague marines are excellent at not dying but dont pack much of a punch themselves. For assault noise marines take a champion with a power weapon, doom siren and melta bombs, as many noise marines as you can afford with sonic blasters and a rhino. You will be surprised at how much damage they can do.

That sounds cool.
I've managed to get them in my list costing 265 points, which is still 1 point cheaper than my Plague marines.
Can i send you my list to see what you think of it?
I am keen to see what a Pulsating Possessed Chaos Marines thinks of it.

Noise marines are best setup for both shooting and assault, and used like Grey Knights, as a mobile unit that can assault shooty units and shoot fighty units.

If all you want is an assault unit with I5, use CSM with an Icon of Slaanesh - you'll save a lot of points. The reason to use Noise marines is to use their sonic weapons.

Notably, in an assault role, you have the doom siren - an AP3 heavy flamer will really soften up most units that you intend to charge. Sonic Blasters are also good for an assaulting unit, as you get to pop off a bunch of shots before you charge.

As for the powerfist question - with all the other shots you can take before charging in to take care of infantry, I like to have a powerfist. Sure, I lose my initiative bonus, but I gain a measure of defense against MCs and Walkers, which I'd otherwise lose all the noise marines to.

I like it dude. Thanks for your input. I will try & write out a list that incorporates all that I am learning here.
I don't want a totally combat unit. I just want a unit that is hard as nails & can deal out death! Your idea, although expensive seems pretty good. Might try it with a power weapon & Melta Bombs first though to save a few points.
Cheers.

Sonic weapons are overpriced for what they do in 5th edition. Especially the blastmaster. But the doom siren is still an excellent value.

Noise marines without sonic weapons make good HtH assault troops because (1) they're cheaper than berzerkers and (2) they're fearless, which makes them better in HtH than CSMs with a Slaanesh icon.

Don't be so quick to write off the powerfist on your noise champ, though. Fearless assault units need to turn combat resolution in their own favor in order to avoid extra wounds, and the powerfist delivers more consistent wounds on a wider range of targets than a power weapon. And you can't get bogged by a dread. People get so preoccupied with the I5 that they don't really think about how the powerfist benefits still outweigh the change in initiative:

I run assaulty noise marines in units of 9-10, no sonic weapons, in a rhino, with a powerfist/doomsiren champ.

Flavius Infernus wrote:
Sonic weapons are overpriced for what they do in 5th edition. Especially the blastmaster. But the doom siren is still an excellent value.

I disagree. Massed sonic blasters are one of the best ways to deal with thunderhammer/SS termies, and they'll do a number on ork hordes too.

The blastmaster is not useful in a squad with other sonic weapons, I agree. But to say it is overpriced in general fails to understand it's true use. A blastmaster should be used as a heavy weapon only. It should be given to a small squad of otherwise non-upgraded noise marines. Their job is to sit on an objective as far back as possible, and utilize the 48" range on the blastmaster to snipe at stuff. In this role, it's actually a good use of a unit. They're fearless, so you don't have to worry about them leaving the objective. They force your opponent to consider being hit with an AP3 blast when they place, or move their guys. And they're a small unit, so they hold the objective without diverting much of the rest of your force to that objective.

Noise marines without sonic weapons make good HtH assault troops because (1) they're cheaper than berzerkers and (2) they're fearless, which makes them better in HtH than CSMs with a Slaanesh icon.

How does being fearless make them better? Either they're winning combat, and not testing, or they're losing combat. I'm not convinced that being fearless is a boon in an assault that you're already losing.

I still disagree, Redbeard. For the points, there are much better choices in the Chaos codex than sonic-armed noise marines.

A Khorne berzerker, caught flat-footed and charged by TH/SS termies, scores exactly the same wounds as a noise marine with all the advantages of not having moved (if he's lucky enough to catch the termies outside their land raider) but does it for 4 points per model less. If the noise marine moved or the berzerker charged, you get even more mayhem for your points out of the berzerker by comparison.

Against things where the AP5 used to matter--back in 4th edition when sonic blasters were priced--like orks for example, now 5th edition cover saves have cut the effectiveness of those weapons in half. But you still pay 4th edition prices. Blasts, and flamer templates are the way to kill orks now. For example unit of 10 plague marines, chosen or CSM with 2+ flamers is actually cheaper than a unit of 10 noise marines with sonic blasters, will kill more orks on average as long as you can get 5+ models under each template, and will kill just as many orks even after taking up to 8 casualties.

140 points minimum for a unit that gets one shot? With AP3 being nerfed by cover saves? I think I'd rather have a tooled up pred or a couple of obliterators for the same cost.

On the fearless chaos marine thing I think I'm going to have to start a new thread.

I have to agree with Flavius, which is a shame because I have a pile of old guitar marines. :(

Doom Siren and Powerfist, mixed with bolter armed noise marines is the way to go.

Some serious debate going on on this subject!
Thanks for all your input guys.
I'll mess about with a few of the above ideas to see what works best for me.

Flavius Infernus wrote:
A Khorne berzerker, caught flat-footed and charged by TH/SS termies, scores exactly the same wounds as a noise marine with all the advantages of not having moved (if he's lucky enough to catch the termies outside their land raider) but does it for 4 points per model less. If the noise marine moved or the berzerker charged, you get even more mayhem for your points out of the berzerker by comparison.

Assuming they're running a LR, and it didn't get popped already. Sonic Blasters have the advantage of not having to get close to do damage.

140 points minimum for a unit that gets one shot? With AP3 being nerfed by cover saves? I think I'd rather have a tooled up pred or a couple of obliterators for the same cost.

You need something that scores to hold objectives in your deployment zone in 1/3rd of the missions, and in another 1/3rd of the missions, you can put an objective way at the back. Your predator or obliterators don't do that. 140 points for a fearless unit that can camp an objective and still influence the battle - yes. You make it sound like everyone always has cover. If my putting down one blastmaster forces my opponent to hug the cover on the table, then I've already accomplished something.

Can you find a scoring unit in the CSM codex that can impact the battle while in your own deployment zone, and do it cheaper than 140 points? Needing 10 CSMs to get a heavy weapon rules them out. KSons are more expensive, Plague Marines don't have the range, and Berserkers can't threaten anything more than 12" from them.

Redbeard wrote:
Can you find a scoring unit in the CSM codex that can impact the battle while in your own deployment zone, and do it cheaper than 140 points? Needing 10 CSMs to get a heavy weapon rules them out. KSons are more expensive, Plague Marines don't have the range, and Berserkers can't threaten anything more than 12" from them.

Easy, the unit I actually use: 5 plague marines, 2 plasmas, 145 points.

True, they don't have the 48" range, but that's what oblits are for, and unlike the blastmaster they're a threat to terminators and can move and still take their best shots. And they're better than noise marines at fulfilling their primary task of sitting on an objective and not dying.

[edit]
If you want to play a shooty marine army, then play Space Marines. They have the low-cost, high-volume fire from speeders, razors, whirlwinds, sternguard etc. that make a shooty armored force viable. Chaos--especially Slaanesh armies--can never match the shooting ability of real shooty armies (maybe Tsons or lash/oblit spam can, but I'm not talking about those here). Chaos is stronger in assault.

@Regwon:

Wait... NM killing more than Plague marines?
I think it's actually comparable.

NM and PM joes have the same number of attacks.
The I5 vs. I3 doesn't matter so much and gets balanced out with the higher toughness on PMs.

So what's left?

Champ and weapons.
Champs have the same choice in special close combat weapons.
NM champs do both fist and reg. weapon well enough.
Plagues like fists more.

So...the big difference is:

Sonic weapons vs. Special weapons.
Which really doesn't affect the 'assault' issue, but is the thing that sets them apart the most.

Sonic weapons are geared more towards hordes, while PM's can get double (one time triple with combi-flamer) flamers, which is comparable as you force enough wounds to equal out to AP3, but can diversify with other weapons. Plasma and Meltas (which are the workhorse of the Chaos army).

But Sonics win out in that they engage infantry with sonic blasters on the move, while PM's have to sit tight to shoot only at 24" and not the NM effective 30".
But this is going out of the 'assault' sort of units.

So, I'd just like to say, NM are not going to kill more that Plague marines in combat. This statement varies when you factor in shooting before, but both have bolt pistols and comparable flame weaponry....
I think they have similar offensive results when geared for combat.

My 7 Cents.

Flavius Infernus wrote:
If you want to play a shooty marine army, then play Space Marines. They have the low-cost, high-volume fire from speeders, razors, whirlwinds, sternguard etc. that make a shooty armored force viable. Chaos--especially Slaanesh armies--can never match the shooting ability of real shooty armies (maybe Tsons or lash/oblit spam can, but I'm not talking about those here). Chaos is stronger in assault.

I agree with what you wrote above, but, on the other hand, Chaos is not the strongest assault army either. Daemons, Nids, and Orks all have stronger assault builds.

So, if you know that you're not the strongest shooty army, and you're not the strongest assault army, and you're not the most mobile army - what do you have? You have to build a force that can shoot the assault armies, and assault the shooty armies. Your millage may vary, but I've had no problem doing that with noise marine units.

Thanks to everyone for all the tips & hints!

@Red: Nice point about the min-squad camping with the Blast Master. I could totally see myself running one of those. Now, would 50 points be worth throwing in to have a camping Havoc Launcher Rhino for them to chill in?

A squad of noise marines with sonic blasters and a champ with PW/doom siren in a land raider with DP make for a great shock unit.

They should be able to do a lot of damage by rolling up and disembarking, firing those assault weapons and then charging the same turn and hitting at initative 5.

In my experience this unit usually takes a lot of fire that should really be intended for my obliterators or demon princes. The DP land raider is very resilient and almost always makes it to it's destination to unload those noise marines.

I never put troops that I want to assault the enemy into a rhino as once they disembark they will have to whither a round of fire and/or get assaulted themselves and denied the shock value of their charge.

Surely you can't put a Daemon Prince in a Land Raider?
It's a MC? That would be like having a Carnifex in a LR...!
Throw me a bone on this one dude.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
A Daemon Prince is Definitely NOT an IC, so how do you suppose that i can attach it to a squad & stick it in a LR?
I am inclined to think that you are talking porkies my friend......!

DP land raider= demonic possesion.

@Klueless:
Not sure if you were joking on the first issue, but augustus5 prob. meant Daemonic POssession (DP) when addressing the land raider.

My 7 Cents.

Edit: ninjaed by augustus5.

I use squads of 5 with a doomsiren and power weapon.

Their job is to cruise around in a rhino and terrorize infantry that's trying to hide behind cover.

After using the doomsiren and the pistols, the unit can usually finish off another unit of marines without much trouble. Against orks, they should probably stay in the rhino until the mob is whittled down more.

Against dreads, simple: Don't get in combat with dreads. I use movement and the board and the superior speed of a transport to avoid dreadnoughts, and make them priority targets for the meltaguns in my army so that such situations don't occur.

I've chosen, rather than make my unit capable of doing anything, to make it really good at doing one thing: Obliterating isolated squads. It does it really well!

NM should be run the way I think they were intended to be used. Shoot the assaulty stuff and assault the shooty stuff.

With all Sonic Blasters, Champ with a Fist and DS in a Rhino they should be able to do this very well.

Heavy 3 bolters should not be underestimated. Neither should 5 attacks each on the charge each. (Shooting beforehand)

They are expensive but its usually worth it IMO

@Spellbound:
Actively Staying away from a dread is fine and all, but it's not as ideal is one would think.
All it takes is a shaken or immobilized result to rob the NM of that impressive speed.

Some 'dreads' have fleet.

@Sgt. Salt:
If you pay for all those sonics, combat should be a last resort.
Like I alluded to, you one will not always avoid combat...hense the inclusion of the fist to take on whatever catches them.

The only issue is: what ratio of bling to the number of guys.
I don't think a 6 man squad should be blinged out, in addition I do not suggest mixing all 3 sonic weapons. Choose a mixture of the two...but I think if you go blast master just go with that and nothing else.

What other weapon has quadrupled in price due to a codex change? Heh.

My 7 Cents.

I have had tremendous success with noise marines.

5 man squad, blastmaster, rhino w/ havoc - 190
7 man squad, 7 x sonic blaster, champ w/ pw, melta bombs, and ds, rhino - 260

As was previously stated, use the 7 man squad to shoot assaulty troops and assault shooty units. Works unbelievably well.

I have found that putting dreads in with noise marines does not go as well as I would hope, even without a fist or meltas on them. Granted, my dread didn't have a CCW (running las/missile) but the fact he could only kill 1-2 a turn (even with CCW) coupled with their high initiative krak grenades meant he was getting glanced 1-3 times a turn too. It turned out to be kind of a pain.

Of course, my opponant wasn't thrilled to have his little men getting squished one or two at a time for 4 turns instead of doom sirening marines in cover, but they did manage to triumph. I think melta bombs would have been sufficient to wreck the dread faster as well.

@Inigo Montoya:
I would go with a 6 man blastmaster squad....come one, the fluffy number, it's not that expensive to achieve.

As for the sonic squad, it seems excessive at least by one sonic blaster.

@wehrking:
I think MB are an ok buy, but rolling 6's on dreads is a pain to begin with. Kraks or meltabombs.

My 7 Cents.