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.

G'day guys,
I've been mulling these tactics over for a while now, seeing as how I struggle to win, but I'm looking for a little credibility toward them before I go out and spend money on more models.

This rough list includes;
Captain with artificer armour, relic blade, storm bolter
a few squads in pods, not sure of weapon loadout (most likely meltagun, missile/plasma, lascannon)
a 10 man scout squad with H-bolter and camo cloaks.
Scout sniper squads with H-bolters/missiles
A couple of predators or somesuch.

Snipers camp on home objectives. Assuming I get the first turn, the scouts combat squad and infiltrate behind some nice cover real close to the enemy. They scout move into some cover 12" (optimally) away from enemy units. The first half of the pods drop in to provide support, tanks role up a bit closer, they shoot stuff up, the scouts and tac squads rapid firing on everything. Assuming everything goes smothely and my scouts dont get blown to smithereens and they have a clear path to an objective in cover, they haul @ss and get over there. Preds shoot up more units, keeping as many enemy units down as possible. Snipers pin stuff down as well. The tac squads move onto any other clear objectives.

Are we sweet? Any feedback/food for thought? I know it isn't really a detailed plan, but it's still an idea.
Thanks

The heavy bolter in a scout squad is pretty Yuck. Get a missle launcher in there if you can. Preditors are great. Squads in pods are great. I would actually take a combination of pods and rhino's. I play space wolves but it seems to work for me nicely.

i think marine scouts are a bit over rated. A squad of scouts i think is nice. I wouldnt bring more then 1 though. A stern guard squad is really killer with its combi weapon goodness.

how many points are you trying to build to?

Something in the vicinity of 1750. If you reckon only one scout squad, would the snipers of bolter scouts be better?

I'm also considering having marines in razorbacks: one combat squad inside, the other footslogging immediately behind, using it as cover.

What's so yucky about scouts with a H-bolter? it gets hellfire shells!

ultramarinelord wrote:Something in the vicinity of 1750. If you reckon only one scout squad, would the snipers of bolter scouts be better?

I'm also considering having marines in razorbacks: one combat squad inside, the other footslogging immediately behind, using it as cover.

What's so yucky about scouts with a H-bolter? it gets hellfire shells!

Not that I would generally advocate using Scouts, but I guess you would want sniper rifles if they're just objective camping for the extra range. Honestly though, Scouts with snipers cause a truly pitiful number of wounds.

Indeed they do Mad Rabbit. I could just go for bolter scouts and have tac squads (combat squads) camp on the objectives. They would probably put out a lot more hurt.

When I play with my Imperial Fists, I generally put a 5 man combat squad on my home objective and let their missile launcher do the talking. In cover, they're tough to shift without assaulting them, in addition to having the tools to deal with either light armor or infantry.
The only scouts I would really use would be harassment assault scouts. BS 3 is pretty awful, but losing a point of WS is generally much less devastating than a lost point of BS.

Oh good, i have assault scouts and a LSS. The sarge also has a powerfist but 1 scout has a H-bolter.

I use them to outflank and beat up crappy squads like guardians, vets firewarriors, anything that crumbles in assault. I then set down the H-bolter and pump out some lead (or hellfire, as the case may be).

Would my razorback idea be better than Drop Pods?

It sounds like you have the base of a great army. Pod armies need a firebase though, I'd recommend another ML on the scouts, and possibly a few razorbacks to help back up the fire from the preds. Dreads might also be a good option.

The relic-blade captain is ok, but you should find 100 points somewhere to fit a librarian in the list, as librarians offer you great utility. if you can't have supercaptain and the librarian, it'd probably be better to have the librarian.

Scouts, don't combat squad in kill points. Have them sit on your home objective with sniper rifles and a ML.


Everything else is fine.

I'm once again iffy about the scouts, they are crap snipers and I may be better off using tac squads in objective games to sit on home objectives, or in annihalation use devastators as a fire base.

Would devastatos be worth investing in? Their wargear is extremely overpriced.

Ive reworked my original tactics: I'll have my original scout idea, one drop pod squad, a predator, vindicator, razorback squad (combat squadded, half in the vehicle, half advancing behind). A squad of footsloggers advancing behind the armour, a libby who can use gate with the footsloggers. The footsloggers can also combat squad in objective games and sit on home objectives and let their heavy weapons hit sh!t up.

Any better?

Well, there are many ways to use scouts

Outflanking with combi-melta, melta bombs and PF and 4 cc + pistol scouts
In speeder w/ MM with fist, combi melta, melta bombs and 4 cc + pistol scouts
Sitting on objective in a 5-10 man squad with Sniper rifle and camo cloak, as a cheap objective holder. I mean, 10 scouts on an objective at the back of the table in ruins will be hard to move... 2+ save! They're vulnerable to outflankers and flamers, but hey, that's their job.

Tactical marines aren't great at holding objectives... combat squading means there are less on the attack and less defending, neither of which they are so great at... I mean they're best rapid firing into enemy units or assaulting to stay out of being shot or to kill off a weaker unit. Unlike many troops in the game, they're very optional. They're really not optimised, and they can perform many roles. Most other troops units in the game are easy to figure out basically what they're for. Tactical squads take quite a bit of thinking, because they're not just walk up and kill and survive, because that won't get you very far.

Devestators are fun. They almost always make their pts up, but minimum 8 in a squad and seriously consider if you really want to take any special weapons on the sergeant.. usually not worth it. Always have a plasma cannon in there if your optimising them. It's a fun and potentially game changing weapon. Terminator squad? Boom. Decent chance of killing them all.

A scout squad with cloaks, rifles and a h.bolter or m.launcher is a great 100 point unit that will win you games. It sits on your objective and if it manages to kill anything sweet, if not who cares? It is a game winning unit.

Have them go to ground if anything so much as sneezes in their general direction to get the 2+ cover save.

In terms of an overall tactic, you seem to actually be asking for list building advice.

If you want to play vanilla marines the first thing you should ask yourself is what you want your army to do? Assault, shoot, or a hybrid of both.

The second thing you should ask yourself is how will it win games?

Once you have answered both questions, you are off to a good start.

Here is an article I wrote on the basics of list building:

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2010/04/40k-list-building-101-part-1.html

That will give you a good idea of where to start. The other four parts of the article are linked at the bottom of that one.

Once you have an idea of what your army is trying to do and how it will do it, then you can focus on in-game tactics which follow the basic premise of your army.

So get a list first, get some feedback on it, then decide how to use it.

Good luck.

Theres two guys that run a lot of scouts in their armies in my local clique and I am by no means impressed with them. lower BS/WS and armour means that when they get charged they die pretty badly.

The advantages I've seen in scouts are lower point cost and camo cloaks. A 2+ cover save is very irritating and a great deterrent. I dont even shoot at them any more, there no point, therefor with that kind of a save you can look forward to your scouts surviving until I charge you on the second floor of the building or destroy the building on top of you.

The disadvantages I've seen include the sniper rifle nerf and scouting with your scouts! Snipers used to hit on 2+ im pretty sure (it may have just been vindicare), but your scouts will hit on a 4, wound on a 4, so your 5 man squad in most cases wont do any real damage at all with sniper rifles. The scout move can be handy until you put them in a vehicle and scout them close to my dudes and your squishy scouts become the most logical target on the battlefield for every single weapon in my army, I have a similiar problem with my baal predators soaking up horrendous amounts of fire first turn and usually dying just because they are so much closer than everything else.

Scout bikers are freaking awesome, rapid fire grenade launchers? Anything with rapid fire blast templates is good for some smiles.

I'm with reecius when he says a unit of scouts holding your back objectives can win you the game. But when your making your army list I would end it with scouts if you have a few points laying around and you want another scoring unit, not start your list with them and figure out what else you can bring to achieve foreign objectives and maybe kill a xeno or two.

Also, make sure not to try drop podding any heavy weapons you actually want to fire. Once my pods touch down the enemy are on me like white on rice (green on orks?).

I actually use assault scouts to very good effect in my Shrike list. I take two or three full units of them with a power fist sarge and often a combi melta. With infiltrate, their scout move and fleet from shrike, if you go first, you will get a first turn charge.

I combo this with Shrike in a full assault squad for around 4 units charging on turn one.

I also usually take a 10 man sternguard squad in a pod with 5 combi melta and 5 combi plas and combat squad them when they arrive so they can open up a few cans against a mech list or drop some scary MC's.

It isn't what I would consider a tournament list, but it is very effective in casual play and I have had good results with it. It is also a lot of fun to play.

I actually do take the scout squad first in my lists as that is the unit that holds my objective and wins me the game more often than not. Everything else I take to fill other roles, but the objective camping unit is the money maker, just as in my Eldar lists I start with a 5 man unit of pathfinders or rangers for the exact same purpose.

And cloaks only give you +1 to your save, meaning a 3+ cover unless you go to ground.

ultramarinelord wrote:I'm once again iffy about the scouts, they are crap snipers and I may be better off using tac squads in objective games to sit on home objectives, or in annihalation use devastators as a fire base.

Would devastatos be worth investing in? Their wargear is extremely overpriced.

Ive reworked my original tactics: I'll have my original scout idea, one drop pod squad, a predator, vindicator, razorback squad (combat squadded, half in the vehicle, half advancing behind). A squad of footsloggers advancing behind the armour, a libby who can use gate with the footsloggers. The footsloggers can also combat squad in objective games and sit on home objectives and let their heavy weapons hit sh!t up.

Any better?

Generally my scouts do what i want them to do. They soak up shots first or even second turn. Maybe take an assault before they die. I use snipers. However i play ultramarines. So I field scout Sargent telion and a hev bolter in my scout sniper squad. This generally helps with wounds. They're rather cheep, long range, and they can pin squads. I mean if you don't use/like tac squads(like me i rarely used them) then the scout snipers can fit right in. You just have to realize they probably wont kill a lot of things. You have to pick your battles, as with any unit on the table.

@ Reecius, I was talking optimally. More often than not there will be a ruin/bunker anything that has 4+ or 3+. So it's usually quite easy to get a 2+ without going to ground.
Also, I hesitated from posting the fact that scouts are good in a shrike list, because it really doesn't fit the models the OP has already got - so there was little point I guess. After all, this is all about making his army work.

Anyway, an over reliance on scouts will be your downfall oneday, Reecius,
I mean, do you really want your CC geared up (which isn't particularly geared up) charging into a Tyranid line? Orks are less of a worry, especially if you get the charge of. If you don't... well, that unit's as good as dead.
Sure, guard would be fun to charge. Hehehe. Fun.

And if you don't get first turn, you're infiltrating, moving, possibly running in order to get close enough to your enemy, because you need the numbers. And after all that you'll be probably in rapid fire range.
[/endrant]

I agree, and as I said, it wasn't what I consider a tournament list. It is a for fun list, and definitely a gambler's list as if the other player steals the initiative, you lose.

If you go second you can still play a strong game, but it is not as good as if you go first.

And of course you don't charge into non MC Tyranids, haha, that would be foolish. You sit in cover, shoot them and let th elittle and medium bugs charge you where you swing first.

Orks are no big deal, I play Orks frequently with my Shrike list and when you charge them they fold to Marines.

But, to each their own. I was just refuting the claim that scouts were not useful as I rarely take a vanilla marine list without at least a 5 man squad to hold my objective and I play competitively. I am not saying I am the best player ever, because I am not, but my objective in playing the majority of my games is to play efficient, powerful lists with the aim being to win the game.

Also, a 4+ cover save will only provide a 3+ with cloaks. I rarely see a natural 3+ save piece of terrain, but perhaps in your area you often use them? If you take a Tachmarine of MotF, of course, you can get the 2+.

Okay everyone, I've rewritten my list. Could I please redirect you all to this 'Army Lists' thread?

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/296201.page