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Hello! I'm a new player, trying to build my first 1500 point army for casual play with my club. I am trying to do this on a budget, and the only figures I have at my disposal are the Black Reach Box Space Marines, plus two additional Tactical Squads, a Devastator Squad and a Land Raider. I can proxy within reason, but I'd like to avoid buying anything else at the moment, but if you want to suggest something that would work really well, feel free to suggest it.

HQ: Librarian - 100 points
Spells: The Avenger, Null Zone

Troop 1 - Tactical Squad - 185 points
- +5 Marines
- 1 Marine with Plasma Gun upgrade
- MeltaBombs

Troop 2 - Tactical Squad - 185 points
- +5 Marines
- 1 Marine with Plasma Gun upgrade
- MeltaBombs

Elite 1 - Terminator Squad - 520 points
- Land Raider, dedicated transport
-Brother-Sergeant Chronus Upgrade

Elite 2 - Sternguard Elite - 255 points
- +5 Veterans
- MeltaBombs

Elite 3 - Dreadnaught - 105 points

Heavy Support 1 - Devastator Squad - 150
- 4 Missile Launchers

TOTAL: 1500 points.

This obvious is not tournament-grade, and I don't expect it to be. With that in mind, I'd appreciate any feedback. Thanks!

May i say first:

Welcome to WH 40k

Congrats on choosing Space Marines. they can be the most forgiving of armies to play with. but also the most interesting to balance right.

Now to your list:

HQ is fine.
Librarian with Null Zone will allow you to take on any Inv Save opponent and hopefully win.

TROOPS

You have have no transports for your troops...and you're not taking any long range weapons (plasma cannon/missile launcher etc).

This means they'll a) be running. b) only have a 24" max shooting range. c) be a big target for blast weapons.

ELITES

Terminator Squad.
No heavy weapon? A heavy flamer will let you take out lots of lowgrade infantry. or TH/SS will let you wade through reams of infantry or walkers with near impunity.

Landraider.
Land raider is fine. twin-linked lascannons are nice. i'd give it a multi-melta as well.
Sergeant Chronus is an interesting upgrade. personally I think he's too expensive but YMMV on this.

Sternguard
No transport again, so they will be running and subject to all the problems the troops have.
I'd change these to a Tactical Terminator Squad Deep Striking in with a Cyclone Missile Launcher and some Chainfists.

Dreadnought.
Nothing wrong on the face of it here....but he's going to be running and unsupported. Give him a T-L Autocannon and make him a tank hunter.

Devastator Squad

Nothing wrong here. but they are VERY suceptible to blast weapons.
One idea would be to drop 2 missile launchers and give them a rhino. That way they could fire two missiles out the hatch each turn but be protected by AV11.

Make sure to take your second special weapon with both tac squads. At the very least take the missle launcher, its a free upgrade.

I'm not sure about the Chronos upgrade on the Landraider, it hardly seems worth it IMO, your lascannons are already twin-linked.

Sternguard...These units are most useful and cost effective when you load them up with combi weapons and drop them with a pod.

Ok taking your list and tweaking it:

HQ

Librarian
Null Zone & The Avenger
100

ELITES

Terminator Assault Squad (5 man)
x 5 TH/SS
200
DT: Land Raider w/ Multi Melta
260

Terminator Tactical Squad
Cyclone Missile Launcher
Chainfist
245

Dreadnought
Multi-Melta
T-L Autocannon
115

TROOPS

Troop 1 - Tactical Squad - 210 points
- +5 Marines
- 1 Marine with Melta Gun upgrade
- Missile Launcher
DT: Rhino

Troop 2 - Tactical Squad - 210 points
- +5 Marines
- 1 Marine with Melta Gun upgrade
- Missile Launcher
DT: Rhino


HEAVY SUPPORT

Heavy Support 1 - Devastator Squad - 155
- 2 Missile Launchers
DT: Rhino

1495 points

I've lost Chronus. 70 points was too much for what he was bringing to the army.

Instead you now have two combat squadded tactical squads with melta guns and missile launchers.
Missile launchers hang back with devastator rhino while the tactical rhinos go tank hunting and objective sitting.

Land Raider tank hunts and delivers Terminators to enemy HQ (make sure your librarian is close enough to give them Null Zone).

Dreadnought......advances and fire Autocannon till he's in melta range then multi-meltas transports.

Regarding Brother Chronus, in the games I played, it seemed that 2/3 hits on my Land Raider were glancing blows. Brother Chronus then would make it so that 2/3 of the damage rolls on a glancing blow did nothing. I agree, 70 points is a lot, but it seemed interesting. I'm going to try it at least once, but I imagine I will come down in agreement with you guys.

I also recognize that a lack of mobility is my weakest point with this current built. However, my current situation is that I don't have Rhinos or the money to buy them. Is there a not-completely-wretched way to run infantry san-tanks? If I could only buy one transport, who should go in it?

All-infantry marines works, but it is quite literally ALL infantry. Obsoive.

10 Tactical Marines - Missile Launcher, Meltagun -- 175

Now take 6 of those.

for 1050 points you have 60 marines on the table, and you can break them down into 12 different squads. What you take then is drop-podders to de-mech the enemy for the tacticals to shoot and some kind of "goalie" unit to hold off advancing assaults. Termies in a land raider work very well.

As for HQ's you'll want either Lysander/Kantor (for stubborn) but Sicarius would also work well (LD 10 and can still auto-fail morale).

It doesn't play like most marine armies, but it does work. I've seen it dont, and it does quite well due to the sheer number of scoring models it puts down.

The Frying Dutchman wrote:All-infantry marines works, but it is quite literally ALL infantry. Obsoive.

10 Tactical Marines - Missile Launcher, Meltagun -- 175

Now take 6 of those.

for 1050 points you have 60 marines on the table, and you can break them down into 12 different squads. What you take then is drop-podders to de-mech the enemy for the tacticals to shoot and some kind of "goalie" unit to hold off advancing assaults. Termies in a land raider work very well.

As for HQ's you'll want either Lysander/Kantor (for stubborn) but Sicarius would also work well (LD 10 and can still auto-fail morale).

It doesn't play like most marine armies, but it does work. I've seen it dont, and it does quite well due to the sheer number of scoring models it puts down.

Ah, thank you! That is an interesting idea. Forgive my ignorance, but what do you mean by "taking drop-podders"? Some of the infantry are in drop pods?

One idea would be to drop 2 missile launchers and give them a rhino That way they could fire two missiles out the hatch each turn but be protected by AV11.

I thought infantry inside the rhino could not shoot HW. I was in error. If the Rhino doesn't move ,the troops inside Can shoot heavy weapons. The great thing about dakka is, we can respond to posts. We can learn the correct rules.
Shooting HW from a vehicle is very useful.

You need transports.