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So here is a concept list that I'm thinking of using the basic space marine list. I'll explain the tactics behind it after I write the army out

HQ:

Librarian-100
Gate, Avenger

Librarian-100
Gate, Nullzone

Elite:

10 Sternguard-325
4xCombi-Melta, 4xCombi-Plasma, Drop Pod

10 Sternguard-325
4xCombi-Melta, 4xCombi-Plasma, Drop Pod

10 Assault Terminators-400
10xTH/SS

Troop:

10 Space Marines-210
Meltagun, Missile Launcher, Drop Pod

10 Scouts-180
Camo Cloaks, Missile Launcher, 9 SR's

Fast Attack:

2 Attack Bikes:100
2xMM

2 Attack Bikes:100
2xMM

Heavy Support:

Thunderfire Cannon

Thunderfire Cannon

Total:2,000

So the idea is that the army has the tools to deal with any list. I can pod in empty if someone bubble wraps and then Gate forward to deal with different threats. Armies relying on cover saves to keep from dying won't have that chance thanks to thunderfires. 10 TH/SS Termies that can be teleported if need be, ran up the field, or I can ring my troops with them to keep things like Nob Bikers from getting to them. Plenty of transport opening potential. Plenty of killability. Have to be careful with my troops but I think I should be ok. 3 Drop pods to make sure I get what I need on turn 1. So thoughts and problems you guys forsee Let it rip!

16 Views and no comments

I dont get why you put combi-plasma on sternguards? they already have marine killing ammo.

And those terminators will have some problems against a shooty list.

Combi-Plasma is anti-MC/Terminator/FnP. I'm actually debating finding points for heavy flamers or PF's on the Sternguard to give them more survivability.

And as for the terminators having problems if I go first against a static shooty army they'll have 1 shooting phase before I'm in their line. I think 10 2+/3++ save guys should weather that storm pretty well. Especially with the sternguard as a local threat as well.

In my experience with large footslogging termies.
No...2/3++ is never as hot as it sounds when they are literally the only target.

But I support the plan .

Hehe, Sanctjud.

Since they shouldn't be the only target hopefully I'll be alright. But if people concentrate fire on them then I'm cool with that too since they won't be shooting my other stuff

Glad to have you on board

Ok but i would rathers put meltas to take out 2+ save, MC and FnP so you can melt more mech if needed.

I think he will get more then one turn of shooting when he feeds you gak and shoot again.

I would run cassius with them if i was going to footslog them so they get fearless as insurance.

I'm not losing anything really by swapping out half the combi's for plasma. On the other hand I lose a lot of anti-FnP/MC/2+ if I make them all meltas. With 4 Plasma the squad can kill and MC in one round of shooting. Without it it's iffy.

I'm wary of using reserve type armies like this, because of the chance that your opponent will see over half your army is deep striking, and hold his army in reserve, and force you to go first.

its gonna be a big hit or miss thing, depending on what type of opponent you get to play. Roll a mech guard player with fleet officer, your in serious trouble. Get a 2-3 raider army, and your in a good position to kick some ass.

I think that adding Pedro should be strongly considered. This would give you 4 troops. I would also consider adding Khan to the termis to make them fleet. Fleeting stubborn Assterms are ANGRY

razorlead wrote:I think that adding Pedro should be strongly considered. This would give you 4 troops. I would also consider adding Khan to the termis to make them fleet. Fleeting stubborn Assterms are ANGRY

Right... Shrike makes people fleet though.

Anyhoo~

Hulksmash, I don't think you will get alot of constructive critisicm because not many people play a list like this, either proxying/using models you own/vassaling would be the best bet. I don't think any amount of dakka tempering will help this list.

I am always open for a game.

Ive podded full sternguard units and had them combat squad when they get out with combi-meltas and combi-flamers. When it works its nice but when you scatter back far enough to be out of 2d6 range it fails hard and thats if they dont just reserve their whole army.

Ive run a TFC before and they are unbelievably frail even with their 3+ save but when they work they slay infantry.

Honestly i predict you either crushing or failing hard vs your opponent the first they face you and then the pretty much beat you every time you rematch with this list there's a lot of risky stuff thats pretty easily countered in it if you know how.

@honer

It's not actually reliant on reserve deepstrikes. That's why I brought 2 Libbies. They can actually deepstrike me anywhere, anytime.

@Razorlead

No offense but you should probably know the Space Marine codex before suggesting things.

@InqSy

Hit me up on skype and we'll get a vassal game in. PM me you skype name to so I can add it. We'll get a game in this week or next week.

I realize asking for thoughts might not pan out but I like to hear people's views on the list and how they think it will work. It gives me a chance to see gaps in the list or consider different approaches which only makes it more solid

@Cromwest

How would you counter the list? How do you see it being used? I'm curious as to whether we are seeing the same uses for what's in it.

But I do agree that a TFC is either gonna be awesome or crappy depending on what I'm playing. But it's ability to knock out horde light infantry makes it totally worth it

yea, both have gate... BUT, you can only bring 2 units through the gate. So, you have a choice, of popping 2 vehicles, or killing infantry. the pod allows you to combat squad after coming out, and fry a vehicle AND the guys inside. So yea, you may gate over and blast 2 of my raiders to hell. However, your using ~500 points to kill ~500 points... and thats with an ideal target, being a land raider, and assuming you don't whiff on the meltas, which would just mean they all die.

also, relying on psykers isn't always a great idea, when you factor in nids / eldar / hoods and other things that can provide psy defense.

I'm just not a fan of sternguard deep striking, their too expensive to use like that imo :(

I agree that it'll depend on how they are used and what they go after. As for psyker reliance I really only rely on it for the first strike. I'm almost guaranteed (sp?) to be able to use it the first time due to range restrictions from hoods and nids. The only army that can truly shut me down is Eldar which I would worry about but that happens

I don't know if I like the sternguard this way or not. I'll have to test it and see how it all flows together. Mostly this is since I own everything in this list except for the thunderfires so it's not like it'd be hard to pick it up. And it's different.

After Nova my SW's are going on the shelf for a bit cause that'll make 4 GT's they's seen this year with me always finishing top 8 (8th, 5th, and 1st w/1 to go) and I want to start tweaking something different

I know you frequent YTTH so I dont know if your familiar with steleks maximum fire power list but that's the list I've been using most often. Id just hold everything in reserve and pretty much anything that would come out of reserves would come on out of range of your sternguard even with the GOI and kill your TFC and bikes. All six of my speeders ignore your 3+ save so i could play keep away from your sterguard and tac squad and deal with them at range. Plus if you were in my 24" psychic hood radius there's a good chance you wont move anywhere. And my 4 las/plas razorbacks with nullzone arnt afraid of your termies id likely ignore your scouts.

I think any army with good psychic defense, mobility and distance fire power can hold and reserve and come on and shut you down. Granted that's not every army but i think you'll have some trouble with heavy mech because those combi-meltas arnt going to do much against some one who can keep away from you and instant kill those bikes.

Like I was saying before I think drop pods, double GOI librarians and TFC's are uncommon enough that you could give a player a really nasty surprise once but probably not on a second game.

I'm familiar with the maximum overdrive lists. But in this case i think your seriously overestimating, should you start in reserve, what you will be able to do to my army. Now if you lined up against me i'd actually be more worried. It would mean I'd get one chance (maybe 2) to cripple your mobility before off you go

You'd really risk reserving against me? With this many models that can move across the board? I'll auto-win guaranteed if you decide to all reserve against me. Wanna know how many infantry it takes to close off a table edge? 72/5=14.4 since you can't move thru an enemy unit. Know how many I have in position to close off you table edge on turn 1? 30. Good luck getting anything on the table except for your speeders

Your description of a game assumes that my bikes are sitting in the open when you come out and that your going to manage to knock off a 2+/3++ Thunderfire (or 2+/4++). The randomness of reserves actually hurt you more against my army because I can react against you with most of my army while you come in a bit at a time.

As for armies w/mobility, distance fire power, and psychic defense those three combined are pretty rare. And this army is would be for tournament play and since I rarely run the same thing for more than a few tournaments and those at several locations across SoCal and not counting GT's I don't mind armies that are a bit of a surprise in how they work.

Mech eldar and all flavors of mech SM and mech guard can all combine psychic defense, armor and mobiliy so its not really that rare. If even one of your drop pods lands too far back your plan falls apart besides only 20 of your marines can come in on turn one one of your pods is going to be in reserves not to mention not every table is devoid of terrain near the edges causing rolling for difficult terrain hurting your chances of covering the board edge. If you really want to block a board edge your gona need 2 more pods to start with 30 marines on the table turn 1.

As for my particular list all of the dreads and speeders can fire everything the turn they come in and if only one shot gets though your coversave which is likely the TFC's are toast. Whether or not i can shoot your speeders depends on the terrain and where I come in at but since i have almost every FOC slot filled and they're likely gona kill two things max before getting instant killed after revealing themselves. If your blocking my board edge i can have a tac squad or dreadnought walk on in a gap and tie you up on CC pulling you off the board edge for my next turn.

Vendettas and other outflankers will make this list cry and again are not that uncommon in a tourney list. I personally don't like everything so heavily dependent on above average dice rolls from pod scatter, beating enemy psychic hoods just to move, one cover save being the only thing between keeping your TFC alive and having a lonely tech marine doing nothing all game. I really think your gona get really lucky or unlucky and one way or another its gona be game over for either you or your opponent on turn 2 or 3.

IF you would bother to look at pg 94 in the Space Marine Codex you could possibly maybe read the Master of the Hunt rule for Khan who when riding on his bike would give you termi several bonuses

Why do TH/SS termies need furious charge and hit and run? They are already str 8 and striking at initiative 2 instead of one does nothing. And while it would be cool to out flank termies the sternguard really suffer without combat tactics since they're not great in close combat and much scarier using their special rounds.

@Cromwest

The 10 Infiltrating Scouts don't care about terrain at the table edge. I only need to get 1 of the 2 pods into the right position to finish off closing off the table edge. I start with 30 models on the table turn 1. 20 of which get podded in and 10 of which I just line up on the table edge. Meaning I shouldn't have a single problem locking off a table edge. But i will agree that Mechdar would be this armies bane. A lot of armies can give this army trouble. I just don't think it's as easy as you claim since you can't start in reserve and expect to get to play the game

@Razorlead

You said Khan gave termies fleet dude. And like Crom said. Chapter/Combat Tactics is far more important in this list as it lets me out of combats and allows me to dictate combats.

If your sticking with this build though like I said before I have used drop pods with one GOI librarian and one unit of sternguard. I had some success with adding locator beacons to the pods and trying to space them about 18" away from each other so if some one avoided the sternguard or they wiped out whatever they landed next to they could GOI away and land next to another pod without scatter to reinforce the tac squads there with more shooting. This also gives you the option of holding your termies in reserve and landing them right next to a drop pod for a bit more flexibility. For 30 points this adds a lot more certainty to deep striking units and that 3rd pod can land right next to one of the first wave pods guaranteed if need be. Oh and even though it only effects the termies a teleport homer on the scout squad can bring your termies to the front line pretty fast too.

Like alot of the stuff in your army any one who's never seen this before is gona get a shock when a not so scary tactical squad suddenly gets reinforced by ten sternguard and ten terminators.

I like the idea of using the beacons. I'm gonna try and see if I can scare up 30pts. It's pretty tight on points but I'll see what I can find

cromwest wrote:Why do TH/SS termies need furious charge and hit and run? They are already str 8 and striking at initiative 2 instead of one does nothing. And while it would be cool to out flank termies the sternguard really suffer without combat tactics since they're not great in close combat and much scarier using their special rounds.

They dont get initiative 2 either they just get 1

I do think you are underestimating how a reserve list will work against you. Lining the board each isn't guaranteed because you have to drop the pods pretty close to the board edge in the first place and risk scattering off (or so far back it doesn't matter). Considering most armies should be in transports even if you do manage to line the board edge by turn 2 afaik they can just tank shock on and obviously Mechdar or any jetbikes/skimmer will fly over you. For an added bonus you technically break the game because there are no rules to cover this situation, depending on the ruling in your area it might be a waste of time.

Personally I think the best loadout you can run for Sternguard is 8 combi meltas and 2 Heavy Flamers + a Libby with Avenger (if you can find the points put him in Terminator Armour and take Vortex). Why are you only taking 8 combi weapons anyway? Depending on how you combat squad them you can either wreck 2 (possibly 3 with Vortex) tanks per squad on the drop, and then cleanup with heavy flamers next turn or you can use 5 combi meltas to wreck a tank and then toast them on the same turn with the heavy flamers + Libby. You lose out on the plasma to deal with MCs and Terminators, but melta deals with MCs almost as well and can be used on Terminators as well (and usually its easier to just torrent them to death due to TH/SS, although Null Zone will help). You could of course run one squad with plasma and one without (Null Zone Libby goes with them).

Rather than using Gate (which will fall on its face badly against Mechdar or anyone with a reserves game or psychic defence) I would try and take enough pods so you can just drop half empty on the first turn and bring the Sternguard in later via pod if you want to (safer and can get four units in their face at once rather than two). You only need another 35 points somewhere to get it, just take pods on units which will never use them (I'm pretty sure the Thunderfires can take pods?), if they bubble wrap drop the empty pods first and give yourself some time to blast it dead with your longer ranged stuff before you pod in and if they give you the alpha strike take it and drop half their army in the first turn with the empty pods for annoyance factor later on. If you also add beacons to the pods you plan on dropping empty they become targets which can't be ignored, saving the rest of your army from fire and potentially making your drop safer.

The Terminators, attack bikes and low troop count are the other potential issues I see with this list. If you don't alpha strike, no matter how you do it you are light on killing power for the first few turns. Sure the Thunderfires will probably take out the bubble wrap but everything else is short ranged and you could run into issues (like your army being mostly dead before your Sternguard arrive). The alternative would be to drop the Terminators and/or the Attack Bikes and take some more ranged firepower, Predators, Rifleman Dread/s, Typhoons, even Devestators would work well. This would let you stay in the game initially and take out targets which would be a waste/overkill for the Sternguard to drop onto (transports and lighter vehicles, MCs etc)

I would probably suggest taking Speeders over Attack Bikes if you are after some more melta fire. With no Land Raider/s or any real vehicles to hide behind as you advance you are basically stuck with boosting them straight at a tank, hoping they live and can destroy it next turn. Speeders will do the job for roughly the same cost but are pretty much guaranteed to get at least one shot off when Deep Striking in + add another Heavy Flamer for horde control. Separating them out would obviously work best to maximise your targets, you have the FA slots.

Troops are obviously an issue as you mention, you would probably have to pull the Terminators to add another unit though, up to you I guess. If you can put the pods elsewhere it would probably be better to put the Tacticals in a Rhino or Razorback to give you another layer of protection even if you only have 1 maybe 2 of them (you could park a missile launcher in a Rhino and have the other combat squad run behind the Terminators).

I'm sorry I stopped reading when you said you could tankshock from off the table

But seriously I realize Mechdar will be the bane of this army. But it's a rare match up in most tournaments. The rest of your advice is well thought out but changes the list significantly. Thank you for your write up. It did present a few new wrinkles I'll be taking into consideration

I'd take the Gate/Avenger Libby and turn him into Pedro. The extra scoring units will be helpful. Take out 2 Termies to make the change. 8 Termies will be fine in combat. You won't miss the extra 4 attacks when Pedro is adding 8 attacks from the Termies when he's close. I actually like Pedro for his +1 attack bubble more than anything. Sternguard with 3 attacks each, assault termies with 3 attacks base, it's all good.

One Gate Libby is enough. 2 of them and you are relying on the tactic to much. Spread out your threats and your tactics to add more flexibilty to the list and keep it from being crippled by losing the ability to Gate. You can still Gate a unit with one Libby and pedro makes a part of your army more of a rock the Gating unit can jump around.

Too less focus for my liking.
Sternguard units arrive at 1st turn and then will have a hard time to survive.

Hey Hulk,
It would be tough, hoping to get some good rolls on the scatter, but:
Libby casts Null.
Vindicator 1 drops pie plate on Termies (please re-roll all them 3+s)
Vindi 2 drops another (again with the rerolls).
Dev Sqd with 4x Plasma Cannon drops (again with the rerolls.
Tac squads with melta and double-tap bolters pick off 1 or 2 more (please reroll the Melta-save).
Lysander with 5 TH/SS Termies assault either remaining Termies (again, please reroll the saves from my Hammers) OR try for the dual assault on the dropped in SternGuard (regardless, the SG are still getting shot up with whatever is left over from the Termie shooting).

Whatcha bringing to the Smackdown? Your Logan-wing puppies? Something like this? The Eldar list it's rumored your putting together? Looking forward to another matchup.