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After playing several games with a combat squad of assault marines in my army, I have found that they have been extremely ineffective . This could be due to only using a 5-man squad of them, but I just wish that their stats actually reflected their CC expertise. Does anyone else feel that assault marines should be enhanced , either with an extra attack, better WS, or some special ability, etc?

Firstly, you're not using enough. One squad of ten might be sort of effective, two will be useful, and three will be a sledge-hammer. Attack enemy units that are already in combat with Dreadnoughts or Tactical Squads; never go one on one if you can help it. They deploy best on flanks to work across the field and attack engaged units.

Combine a squad with a Chaplain for the Litanies of Battle and Honour of the Chapter, or with a Librarian with Force Dome and a close combat power. These characters will enhance Assault Marine close combat ability and survivability.

Remember also that Combat Tactics can be used to withdraw in the enemy's turn if you lose combat, pepper the enemy with Bolt Pistol and Flamer shots to whittle them down, and then charge back in. This is especially good if you also have a Dreadnought in close combat, as walkers don't take No Retreat! damage, and will prevent the enemy unit from executing a Sweeping Advance and holding the Assault Squad in combat. This is a useful way of dealing with opponents that will require more than one round of combat to defeat.

Furthermore, remember that Jump Infantry can Deep Strike, and their Deep Strikes can be made accurate using Locator Beacons, and reliable using Tigurius' Gift of Prescience.

Nurglitch wrote:Firstly, you're not using enough. One squad of ten might be sort of effective, two will be useful, and three will be a sledge-hammer. Attack enemy units that are already in combat with Dreadnoughts or Tactical Squads; never go one on one if you can help it. They deploy best on flanks to work across the field and attack engaged units.

Combine a squad with a Chaplain for the Litanies of Battle and Honour of the Chapter, or with a Librarian with Force Dome and a close combat power. These characters will enhance Assault Marine close combat ability and survivability.

Remember also that Combat Tactics can be used to withdraw in the enemy's turn if you lose combat, pepper the enemy with Bolt Pistol and Flamer shots to whittle them down, and then charge back in. This is especially good if you also have a Dreadnought in close combat, as walkers don't take No Retreat! damage, and will prevent the enemy unit from executing a Sweeping Advance and holding the Assault Squad in combat. This is a useful way of dealing with opponents that will require more than one round of combat to defeat.

Furthermore, remember that Jump Infantry can Deep Strike, and their Deep Strikes can be made accurate using Locator Beacons, and reliable using Tigurius' Gift of Prescience.

A lot of this is good info.

An assault squad of 5 men just won't cut it. It's kinda like shooting a tac squad of 5 men. It just don't do that kinda damage the 10 man squad can do! I really reccomend if you aren't going to put a character in the assault squad, to leave them with more people to be able to deal good damage.

Using a single combat squad of marines is not the problem as I have a DA squad with a sarge with powere fist that charged a Imperial gaurd CC squad and they wiped them out in one turn flat with each firing a single bolt pistol shot that felled two in total.
The way to use them is to attack/defend the flank, use cover to come up to the target unit out of sight and then leap over cover and charge in as they can't react well, losing the better leadership from the unit attacking through cover!

A unit of ten can do a nice countercharge, but you need to be careful with them. They can easily get swamped and overrun if they are unsupported.

The truth is assault Marines aren't that good unless you run them with 2x flamer and a combi flamer. The ability to jump around and drop two to three templates is their best attribute. Of course the sergeant should have either a power fist or thunder hammer. There are a lot of units that will quickly destroy this unit in close combat. Terminators are a much better choice.

G

By the way, Assault Marines are not necessarily the nastiest CC fighters the chapter has to offer. Every marine has to do service in such squads on his way to fully fledged Tactical Marine (which nowadays seems to be the pinnacle of Marinedom), and thus from a fluff point of view they need not have better CC stats than "normal" Marines.

The real hand-to-hand monsters are, in my opinion, to be found in Vanguard Squads where the guys with a preference for chainswords and melee goodness gather. They do actually have improved stats and equipment.

The New Romance wrote:
The real hand-to-hand monsters are, in my opinion, to be found in Vanguard Squads where the guys with a preference for chainswords and melee goodness gather. They do actually have improved stats and equipment.

Oh god no. If you absolutely need to field models with jump packs, just take regular assault marines. Vanguard are far too sickeningly overcosted to be any good.

The vanguard are hard to make work for a WAAC list but if you are playing for strictly fun they are pretty cool. It's one of the major issues with the SM codex that most units are overcosted.

G

Green Blow Fly wrote: It's one of the major issues with the SM codex that most units are overcosted.

Like what?

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Green Blow Fly wrote:The truth is assault Marines aren't that good unless you run them with 2x flamer and a combi flamer. The ability to jump around and drop two to three templates is their best attribute. Of course the sergeant should have either a power fist or thunder hammer. There are a lot of units that will quickly destroy this unit in close combat. Terminators are a much better choice.

G

The Sgt cannot have a Combiflamer :(


Their fun as a countercharge unit. The problem and its a big one is no way to reliably blow open transports and assault troops within.

Assault marines need a special ability to be useful. Currently they are very bread and butter, however to be competitive you need something more in the current environment.

One solution for marines in general would be to change chainsword to be poison. Thus, they always would wound on a 4+, but as s4 marines anything with t4 or worse would grant the assault marines a reroll. Makes chainswords special. Or, just let all chainsword models reroll to wound. Makes the chainswords better than a combat knife too.

Another solution would be to give them a DoW2 style 'assault jump' ability, where the bonus attack they get for charging counts as something special, s8 or d3 attacks or something, so that their is something special to having huge jump pack marines crashing down on top of you that is different from regular, non-jp marines--heck even furious assault would work!

As for the experience difference between devs, assault, and tac marines... its not a fault of the assault marine, but a fault of the tac marines. Tacs should be +1 attack in my opinion, as they represent veterans, and marines are the elite of the elite. But even with +1 attack, the tacs should still not be better than an assault marine in cc, thanks to the chainswords, or assault jump, or whatever that the assault marines have.

Being a BA player you realise how much use assault marines are
5 man squad is pretty much junk, they will have a small impact on some units, but rarely enough to turn heads and cause concern.
10 man squads are the way forward
Plasma? no point taking plasma weapons, points heavy and a slight risk at times.
Power weapons or fists work nicely though, adding that extra punch needed at times for well armoured units or vehicles.

as stated, 1 unit is not enough, 3 units are an ideal amount, try throwing a character with them (chappy with a fist for example) he will benefit the unit alot.
Or, if you like BA then take some death company / assault vets / dante to give the units / army a much bigger punch.

Also, keep them away from large mobs.
30 boyz is suicide to charge, even with 30 or so attacks thats not going to kill enough to be effective in the long run, so whittle down large units through shooting, or throw 2 units of 10 men at them, allthough, watch possitioning and make sure they wont be sitting ducks afterwards.

LtCobalt wrote:Does anyone else feel that assault marines should be enhanced , either with an extra attack, better WS, or some special ability, etc?

I have a feeling , starting from Blood Angels Codex, all jump pack assault marines will get special rule like Dawn of War 2 have ( impact / damage when they land onto enemy units )

If they could just stand still and assault 12 to 18 without being able to shoot and cause like a -1 to initiative it would be great.

ill agree on a special rule (either an impact style hit if assaulting a certain range)
or maybe even chainswords causing rending? may seem like a bit too much, but it makes them differ in more than just movement and weapons.

They are pretty sweet with Shrike.

A 12" move, 1"-6" run , then 6" assault makes Assault Marines into a truley sickening and fast force. Two to three such squads will cause a lot of headaches for many armies, simply because you cannot outmaneuver them...or their 2 Flamers + PF each.

Also, with the amount of tourneys that use the INAT FAQ (or any tourney that rules the same way), Shrike infiltrating one of those fleeting, jump pack squads can severely mess up an opponent's deployment and gameplan.

Alerian, shrike is good, but in general he isnt a way to change the unit as such, much like adding dante to the unit, they are still marines with CC weps and jump packs

sourclams wrote:Oh god no. If you absolutely need to field models with jump packs, just take regular assault marines. Vanguard are far too sickeningly overcosted to be any good.

Yes, you're certainly right. I was only referring to the fluff (okay, maybe a little misplaced in the Tactics forum), I think I didn't make that very clear.

From a crunch point of view, Vanguard probably aren't the way to go. Assault Marines (at the moment, at least) might not be either. It really is a shame, I like both unit types a lot, but they don't quite seem to cut it in-game.

I beg to differ, but FLEETING Assault Marines are very different than normal Assault Marines...espeicaly if you can Infiltrate and Fleet them....they become a brutal unit when Shrike is attached.

My poiint is that they don't need a buff at all..they just require certain characteers to truely make them shine (much the way that many units are going...see Kommandos+Snikrot).

If Assault Marines were better AND you added Shrike, they would become overpowered for their cost.

Yea, I figured that much of my woes were caused by just getting a combat squad; I wanted to see how they performed before I invested in them, but at the same time I guess that doesn't give them a fair chance, how ironic. I have been looking at vanguard vets just because of their ability to pack power fists/relic blades, both giving SM the strength boost they need to be CC powerhouses.

LtCobalt wrote:I have been looking at vanguard vets just because of their ability to pack power fists/relic blades, both giving SM the strength boost they need to be CC powerhouses.

Here's the problem:

Vanguard vet: 20 points
Jump Pack: 10 points
Power Fist (on someone other than Sarge): 25 points

You just spent 55 points on a dude that will die like every other 16 point Marine. Point for point, Vanguard can't compete with Assault Terminators for viability.