Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I normally run an Undivided troop heavy Chaos army, lots of CSMs with Melta and Flamer and Plasma oh my!
Its a good army however it feels a little cookie cutter.

For a long time I've toyed with the idea of Noise Marines, nice bold design and they can function similar to Chaos Grey Knights being both shooty and stabby as well as mobile. However the singlest biggest drawback is the point cost of the units, with a Sonic Blaster they're most expensive then any other Cult squad.

My question to the group then is this, What does it take to make them competitive?

Well, I run a quite successful NM army.
However, there are neither sonic blasters nor blastmasters in the army.
It consists of winged lash DPs, NM Rhino squads each of which led by an AC with doom siren, and Obliterators.

Noise Marines benefit greatly from lash of submission, in both of their loadouts.

Now, you can choose to forgo the sonic blasters to keep them cheap, but in my preference I would rather use them.

A ten man squad should be designated for an assault or a shooting role. While they're good at both when balanced, they become too points-intensive to rely on to do both.

So:

Shooty Noise Marines: Ten Noise Marines, 9 Sonic Blasters, 1 Blastmaster, Rhino (No Champion or Doom Siren). Park this group in cover, and fire all weapons on heavy. The blastmaster itself should earn back its points, and the fire support from the sonic blasters is excellent.

Assault Noise Marines: 9 Sonic Blasters, Noise Champion, Doom Siren, (PW or PF). You should be shooting and assaulting with this squad asap. If you can get a Lash to form your enemies into a cone for maximum doom siren coverage, you're golden. The Doom Siren is a phenomenal weapon.

Sonic blasters are expensive, but any army already built to fight MEQ units could benefit from SB when fighting a hoard army like IG, Orks, or Nids. I think you should always include a doom siren. It's great for destroying MEQ units, and soft squishy armies that SB do well against will throw everything they have at noise marines so an enemy unit is sure to run into range of a doom siren.

Sonic Blaster: Essentially a Bolter that can rapid fire the full 24". (Or if you stand still, you can get 3 shots each.) If you have a lot onf these in a squad you can lay quite impressive firepower into your enemy.
Blastmaster: IMO, you should always take this. Long range and the standstill blast shot can tear a squad of SM apart in one shot. Standing still, it's a Battlecannon with a 48" range. Moving, it's basically a Heavy Bolter. It's expensive, but hey, welcome to the Noise Marines.
Doom Siren: A flamer that is great at killing MEQ's. IMO, a must-take if you have a Champ (which I would take anyway).

I think that Noise Marines are great for killing MEQ's and horde armies. The type of firepower you can throw at your enemy is just awesome. Just for gaks and giggles, lets make a squad really quick.

Noise Marines, 6-man squad: 180 points
- Champ with Doom Siren: 30 points
- Blastmaster and 4 Sonic Blasters:20 points
And lets assume they have a Rhino.
That's 265 points.
Not much more than a good-size squad of all the other cult choices with the sensible upgrades.

9-man Thousand Sons(w/ Sorc): 244+ points (279 with Rhino)
7-man Plague Marine squad: 161 points (196 with Rhino)
8-man Berzerkers Squad: 168 points (203 with Rhino)
(Note that the above are not counted as having any upgrades, for example, the Berzerkers did not count as having a Skull Champion, or Plague Marines did not have any weapons given to them.)

As you can see, the points costs are actually fairly compairable. Noise Marines are fairly competitive (other than being a lot of points) and the points costs can be around the same for all the other cult choices.

I say go for it.

AmbitionUnbound wrote:Noise Marines benefit greatly from lash of submission, in both of their loadouts.

Now, you can choose to forgo the sonic blasters to keep them cheap, but in my preference I would rather use them.

A ten man squad should be designated for an assault or a shooting role. While they're good at both when balanced, they become too points-intensive to rely on to do both.

So:

Shooty Noise Marines: Ten Noise Marines, 9 Sonic Blasters, 1 Blastmaster, Rhino (No Champion or Doom Siren). Park this group in cover, and fire all weapons on heavy. The blastmaster itself should earn back its points, and the fire support from the sonic blasters is excellent.

Assault Noise Marines: 9 Sonic Blasters, Noise Champion, Doom Siren, (PW or PF). You should be shooting and assaulting with this squad asap. If you can get a Lash to form your enemies into a cone for maximum doom siren coverage, you're golden. The Doom Siren is a phenomenal weapon.

I've thought of something similar, I guess I'm torn on whether the Blastmaster is really worth it.

I was thinking of 8-10 naked Noise Marines with a Power Fist/Doom Siren Champion in a Rhino. Basically a Berserker squad equivalent with a fancy flamer.
And a squad of 8-10 SB Noise Marines, Rhino optional. Walking up the board pumping out dakka or camping an objective for mad firepower.

The problem with both is that their AT firepower is weak at best and even with the Blastmaster it can't really be trusted, not like Meltaguns.

Redbeard seems to do well with them. IIRC, his tactic is to put them in a Landraider. Drive up, disembark, shoot the bejesus out of whatever unit is in front of them and then assault whatever's left. I suppose it can be done to a degree with Rhinos where you drive up and park it in front of the enemy then next turn get out, shoot the bejesus, etc.

I've used NMs in LRs as well. 3 squads with 2 lash sorcerors. Then fill out the rest of my points with a couple termicide squads or raptors.

It's not the most competitive or fun to play list but it's always nice to come out of a land raider and unload 30 shots followed by assaulting at I5.

Noise Marines, 6-man squad: 180 points
- Champ with Doom Siren: 30 points
- Blastmaster and 4 Sonic Blasters:20 points
And lets assume they have a Rhino.
That's 265 points.

No, just 245 pts.

Since one of the main anti-tank options for Chaos is Termicide, can you get by focusing your NM on anti-infantry and using other FOC slots to handle the big stuff?

This seems to work on paper, but it is a big departure from the relative safety of my Meltagun/Power Fist CSM foundation.

NMs kind of have to be anti inf. Even the BM isn't very consistent AV. The two loadouts I like are a squad with a Doom Siren champ w/fist or a naked 6 or so man squad w/BM that just hugs covers or sits in a rhino and rains BM templates. Sonic blasters are too expensive- 5 pts for 1 more bolter shot. Not a goo deal (they should be a free upgrade just for being NMs ;-)). Better to just take plain CSM if you want to go that route- and you can get meltas. So yes, the other FOCs are where your AT comes from (especially AT).

The marked Marines seem to do best in their cult numbers, points-wise at least, as has already been(obliquely) pointed out by Zack (with help from the always-giggling wuestenfux). The trouble is NM are supposed to benefit from increased I, which doesn't work well with the small squad size. I've thought about NM a lot and the best I can say is a loaded six in a rhino, i.e., keep 'em shooty, supported by IoCG/melta/PF vanilla CSM. As a casual gamer, this annoys me but thats C:CSM4ed for ya! If I had to pick, I'd say NM are a better bet against hordes than MEQ.

"always-giggling wuestenfux"
100% Seconded... he does not giggle in 40KO as much as he does here.

They are, provided they 'kite'.
The problem is the board is only so big, and the variety of options of entering the board (DS/Outflank).

When ever there is a unit that is flexible, they pay for it through their noses, in this case they pay for flexible engagement ranges, but get the short stick because the board will in most cases be 4x6.

That's why I like them supported by nillas--of course they'll always need to be doing something else, too. I guess they would have to move in lockstep, which could get cumbersome very quickly.

@Sanctjud: I've always wondered about wuestenfux. Oh and don't forget to change your avatar back to something suitably Nurglish now that Christmas is officially over.

Touching on this topic again, I've given it some more thought and this is what I've come up with.

Offensive squad = 8-10 Noise Marines, 7-9 Sonic Blasters, Doom Siren/Power Weapon Champ, Rhino

Defensive squad = 5-6 Noise Marines, Blastmaster, Rhino/Havoc Launcher optional


In this way I feel that I make the most use out of their sonic weapons and their I5 (which is really all thats different then normal CSMs).
The offensive squad hops out of Rhinos and lays down fire before charging in to finish the job. Similar to how most CSMs work but I have more firepower/better Flamer/I5 attacks.
Defensive squad camps objectives and lobs S8 cupcakes around the battlefield (take that Tyranid Warriors!) If I have spare points I could hide them in a Havocback and lob 2 cupcakes around while being protected small arms fire and Outflanking Genestealers.

I've always liked Noise Marines, and one tactic I've had success with that hasn't been mentioned so far is to use them for a purely defensive purpose. I play against a lot of Drop Pod-centric lists, and when doing so I keep my two squads of Noise Marines in reserve. When a Pod of ten close combat-focused Marines lands near my objective, I can enter my Noise Marines just under 24 inches away from them and blast away with a lot more firepower than my opponent ever expects. Generally, they don't even make it to assault against me.

Alternately, they make great objective holders from the beginning of the game since their weapons function better when they can just sit around rockin' out, as it were.

In my opinion, Noise Marines are the best all-around anti-infantry force that Chaos has going for it, (since Thousand Sons are so dedicated to anti-MEQ work). They're almost completely useless against vehicles, but hey, that's what Obliterators and tri-las Predators are for, right?

alanedomain wrote:In my opinion, Noise Marines are the best all-around anti-infantry force that Chaos has going for it, (since Thousand Sons are so dedicated to anti-MEQ work). They're almost completely useless against vehicles, but hey, that's what Obliterators and tri-las Predators are for, right?

That's exactly what I use... frightening...

I run my Noise Marines as a defensive 6 man squad with Sonic Blasters, Blastmaster and a Rhino with a Havoc Launcher. I don't really like the idea of using so many points just to give the Rhino a mini-Battlecannon. Some people call it "mixing weapons," but I find the Blastmaster compliments the Sonic Blasters well. Its AP helps it cut through MEQs where the Sonic Blasters have trouble, and the blast template can pick up quite a few hits besides. Combined with the Havoc Launcher, they ARE my anti-infantry. I just sit them on the first objective I come across and let them set up shop.

I love Noise Marines, don't care if they're overpriced or not that competitive. When I finish my orks, I'm making a NM-themed army. They may be more fluffy than competitive, but... meh. I'll have fun. I think they still do plenty of damage, particularly since most of what I play is MEQ and they have plenty of options for them.

It seems like Warptime would be a nice addition to an EC list...2-3 dice per SB, then re-rolling misses and failed wounds...I know Lash is most peoples' first choice, but a Lash DP+Warptime Sorc (Warplash?) could tear things up.

Whoops, nevermind...warptime only works for the psyker...

I'm going to have to second Manchu (tends to happen a lot, eh?). Centerpiece unit, in a Landraider. Let them earn their points for reals Otherwise they're pretty subpar. A Noise marine with sonic blaster is 1 2/3 a normal CSM.

Running a team tournament, they were awesome. 2k - 1k / player
ME:
DP - wings, MoS, LoS

9 NM - champ w/ ds and pw, rhino
9 NM - 5 x sb, champ w/ ds and pw, rhino

2 x oblit
2 x oblit

Teammate
DP - wings, MoN, warp time

10 CSM - IoCG, champ w/pf, 2 x melta, rhino
10 CSM - IoCG, champ w/pf, 2 x melta, rhino

Tri las predator
Vindicator - dp

Te noise marines were stone cold killers all day. You just need to use them properly...

Inigo - In the first squad there, are you basically taking Noise Marines just to take the Doom Siren on the Champ? Or just for the theme? +5 pts per model seems expensive for +1 I and fearless.

You could make it two squads of 6, and you would have 120 points to blow on an 8-man CSM squad for more scoring.

Well, I play an EC army at the competitive level.
Generally, I take 2 winged lash DPs and 3 NM squads in Rhinos each of which led by an AC w/ power weapon, doom siren.
Fire support comes from HS tanks or Obliterators.

Blast masters are only good if the unit stands still and this is hardly compatible with an army geared towards assault.
Sonic blasters are useful in larger squads. At rapid fire range and when the unit moved, they are just bolters and so I don't bother, either.

wuestenfux wrote:Sonic blasters are useful in larger squads. At rapid fire range and when the unit moved, they are just bolters and so I don't bother, either.

Exactly. They work better coming out of a Land Raider or standing on a hill than in a rhino.

hey minigun. i've been trying to make an ec army as competitive as possible too. here's my opinion:

two squads of havocs w/lascannons. two sorcerers with warp time and lash. take sonic blasters and doom sirens but not blast masters (overpriced)

demon princes, rhinos, and obliterators are strong units, but were intentionally left out to deny the opponent's anti-tank weapons a good target. you should clock in around 7 or 8 kill points in a 2000 point game too, which makes them pretty solid for annihilation. the army can shoot on the go but is really at its best sitting in cover throwing out mad sonic weapon attacks. its not very mobile and struggles to hold more than 2 objectives at a time.

something that may have been left out of the previous discussion about sonic weapons is that they shoot at *full* effect from 2 feet away. for 5 points a man you're tripling the effectiveness of his bolter at anything over 1 foot, increasing it by half if he's closer. doom sirens are ridiculously good at 15 points. blast masters are good too, but sooooo expensive.

good luck with your list. will you let me know how your next couple games go?

Well, the point is that you either get a Champion or a Blastmaster. If you take a Blastmaster, the squad is dedicated to shooting. If you take the Champion, its an assault squad. If you take both, you're wasting points. In that list, I might still take the Blastmaster and use the Sorcerer to make up for the lack of Champion, since the squad will more, likely than not, be doing counter-assault anyway.