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how viable is an all infantry based space marine army - no vehicle of any kind bikers etc just footsloggers - and which codex best suits this (I know someone who is quitting war gaming and leaving a heck load of space marine but just infantry stuff and he would sell it too me cheap but I was wondering if its worth it no point of starting an army if its bound to fail)

You can have 10 Tactical Marine equivalents, and 10 Scout equivalents in one squad using the BT codex.

Thats 60 Tactical Marines, and 60 Scouts if you use all of your troops slots on the FoC.


Not sure how viable it is however.

See this thread for some interesting discussion on the subject:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/288111.page

However, it might be worth revisiting with the FAQ changes.

Dark Angels terminator army. SW Logan wings. Blood angel assault marine with feel no pain blobs.

If there are just vanilla marines then just scratch build some cheap and crude drop pods and play SW. Buy some melta guns. Problem solves. And later on you can ad dreadnoughts to the list for a better late game punch.

Good luck, although these request posts are a bit lame on DakkaDakka.

Blood angels would definetly be the best IMO. Just have assault marines swarm down on everyone.

yevix wrote:how viable is an all infantry based space marine army - no vehicle of any kind bikers etc just footsloggers - and which codex best suits this (I know someone who is quitting war gaming and leaving a heck load of space marine but just infantry stuff and he would sell it too me cheap but I was wondering if its worth it no point of starting an army if its bound to fail)

Yes

I started my Death Guard by buying a ton of Space Wolf infantry and converting them over. And they've never been in a rhino. A good deal is a good deal so I say go for it. People seem to complain about foot sloggers alot but here are some pros that don't come up enough.

-Cheaper. We talk about meching up 3-4 squads and you can almost purchase another.
-They don't slow down. Rhino's break and ruin your mobility. You have to play differently, but you never go slower than 6''. You can count on that, and plan for it. You have to know where you are going in the beginning, and don't break the plan. Infantry can get 36'' in a game without running. That's not a lot left to spare or second guess, but it'll get you there.
-More bolter shots. I take more shots out of rhinos than in them. Most mech players I know won't get out of the box for the 24'' shot, which I'm always taking.
-Less kill points when it counts.
-Target saturation. You have no tanks, and that ruins the value of all the melta and lascannons in the opponents list. Yeah they still kill guys, but much less efficiently than what they were intended for.

Mass anything in an army hurts. Just make sure you take plenty of AT to help out. Possibilities with all these infantry include:
Blood Angels
-Tac Squads backed up by Sanguinary Priests, Devastators, Death Company and/or Stern Guard? That'll work
Space Wolves
-Just take a ton of grey hunters. Or upgrade them all to wolf guard with bolters.
Vanilla
-Vulkan is still keeping infantry in business right?
--infantry spam can work if you plan it right
Chaos
-Plague Marines, chosen, havocs, chaos marines... you can do it.

I will say out of all of this you may want SOME mobility. Some jump, a demon prince, infiltrators/deep strikers, something. It helps when you fight an army that will out shoot you, and it counter charges when you can out shoot them.

i run a marine infantry list that uses drop pods. its a good way to get on objectives asap, and still spam out tons of infantry with tons of fire. mind you, i also bring a few dreads with me, just to provide some CC support, or act as anti vehicle. otherwise, a static marine gunline laded with hev weps, can make mush out of most anything when configured properly. the freebie missle launcher is a good thing as it can multi purpose for vehicles or hordes

Infantry spam has a few advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages
Lowers overall KP
Lowers effectiveness of AT weapons
Throws people's game off

Disadvantages
Models take forever to move
Easier to get assaulted
More vulnerable to psychic powers.

The biggest challenge with an all-infantry army is to build one that can handle enemy anti-armor at a distance. You want to be able to shoot down a vendetta before it drops the vets onto an objective, or take down the 3 warwalkers with TL SC, etc.... To do this, the most logical tool is devastators, as they deliver the right weapon at the right cost. This limits you to either BA or SW.

Both armies have their own flavor. BA lets you soak the board in assault troops that are scoring. SW lets you put terminators hidden inside your squads. Both are very good options and worth looking at. At that point its a matter of personal preference. I would go with SW, but thats just my style.

However, SW lack alot of heavy options that other marines get. You cant put a las cannon or missile launcher in a squad, so your only option would be the longfangs. On the other hand, if you foot slog it, the lack of heavy weapons could be liberating for movement, and filling up the heavy support with long fangs dont sound too bad.
Multiple wolf priests and rune priest would also fill a few gaps.

Fayric wrote:However, SW lack alot of heavy options that other marines get. You cant put a las cannon or missile launcher in a squad, so your only option would be the longfangs. On the other hand, if you foot slog it, the lack of heavy weapons could be liberating for movement, and filling up the heavy support with long fangs dont sound too bad.
Multiple wolf priests and rune priest would also fill a few gaps.

Yea, you would go with melta/plasma/flamers for your squads moving up to capture objectives. Leave the anti-transport to the long fangs. A squad or two with melta guns can take care of any AV 14 threats that occur.

While the all troops seems promising..you gotta hope and pray that your opponent with a lot of vehicels doesn't tank shock the bejesus outta ya...happened to me...wasn't pretty..

Go for Codex Space Marines: You need at least one Librarian for the Gate of Infinity to contest and capture objectives. Take a Techmarine or two (a Elite Techmarine is an Independent Character that can join a Thunderfire Techmarine to crew the Thunderfire Cannon) to reinforce ruins for bonus cover, and learn how to use Combat Tactics.

The Emperors Champion - Accept the Challenge -- 140

6 x 10 Initiates + 10 Neophytes w/ Power Fist and Meltagun -- 285

1850.

You now have 121 infantry in 7 Kill points. Go nuts?

I don't see why not.

You have Devestators for heavy weapons,and Assualt marines for speed.

If you want it,go for it.

killogre85 wrote:While the all troops seems promising..you gotta hope and pray that your opponent with a lot of vehicels doesn't tank shock the bejesus outta ya...happened to me...wasn't pretty..

Only a fool tank shocks a squad of Marines. they WILL have a melta gun, DoG will wreck that tank.

two codexes stand out for me with regards to an all-infantry base:

Blood angels using assault squads with tonnes of melta and flamers with Unleash Rage librarians and sanguinary priests providing cover saves (shield of sanguinius) and FnP and furious charge (blood chalices).


black templars in drop pods with melta guns and Emperor's champion taking vow Abhor the Witch (5+ nullifier on enemy psychic powers!).



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also salamanders in a tonne of drop pods....

You need Stubborn or Fearless army-wide in order to make it work. If you haven't got it, there's very real risk of running into "that IG player" and getting bounced around the table by the PBS. When you've got nothing that can move more than 6"+run, you can't afford to lose mobility to the PBS, or to a lesser extent the fear-spamming Blood Angel player.

You need some sort of psychic hood or other psy defense. Lash Chaos LAFFS at mass infantry hordes, especially MEQ hordes. Although the Lash isn't nearly so good in today's mech heavy environment, it's still just about guaranteed that you'll run into a lash player--and he'll probably be a good player who's spent the last 5 years getting practice.

With those two points in mind, Deathwing becomes a no-brainer. A dozen missile launchers on Assault Terms that can include a chainfist is not a bad combo. It's a very elite army, no doubt, but actually has respectable shooting while moving 6" every turn, which is unusual for most hard-as-nails assault lists.

Logan-led Wolfguard are also very doable, and S10 tank hunting lascannons on a single Long Fang pack are enough to deal with all but the most AV14-spammy lists out there. Combimeltas on everything potentially is also a nice utility boost.

BA of course can do mass jump marines with FNP, which certainly doesn't suck. Don't know if that counts as foot or not for your purposes. BA Devastators are also not bad.

I wouldn't do Vanilla, though, unless it was Null Zone Lib + Assault Terminators backed up by some form of meched shooting; some combo of tacs in rhinos + Speeders + Predators. Massed Tacticals are just too weak in any sort of assault capacity; Orks or DE could just tear them apart.

Dual lash + Oblits + PMs is a workable foot list, as is Abby + PMs + Terminators. I wouldn't want to do foot chaos versus Deathwing, though.

Grey Templar wrote:

killogre85 wrote:While the all troops seems promising..you gotta hope and pray that your opponent with a lot of vehicels doesn't tank shock the bejesus outta ya...happened to me...wasn't pretty..

Only a fool tank shocks a squad of Marines. they WILL have a melta gun, DoG will wreck that tank.

They only get to DOG w/ the Meltagun if you actually run over the model w/ the meltagun.

Thaylen wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:

killogre85 wrote:While the all troops seems promising..you gotta hope and pray that your opponent with a lot of vehicels doesn't tank shock the bejesus outta ya...happened to me...wasn't pretty..

Only a fool tank shocks a squad of Marines. they WILL have a melta gun, DoG will wreck that tank.

They only get to DOG w/ the Meltagun if you actually run over the model w/ the meltagun.

Re-read the DoG rules.

the squad must take a Ld test. if failed they fall back, if passed they move out of the way. they may also choose a model in the squad to perform the DoG attack which AUTO-HITS(deadly with a melta gun)

you are both correct; only a model that is going to get run over may DoG; it is in the first sentence of DoG page 69 of the brb: If a unit that has been attacked by tank shock passes it's morale test, one of its models in the vehicles path can stand and attempt to destroy it rather than move out of the way"

If you tank shock a unit and aim at not the PF/MG/Lascannon/MM guy you can send them out of the way with impunity.

I've played with the idea of bringing a standard company to 'ard boyz. 100 marines, 6 tac squads, 2 dev squads, 2 assault squads, a dreadnaught or two, and rhino's to round out the points.

You can fit all that pretty comfortably in 2500.
That's like 6 missile launchers, several las/plas/ml/heavybolter for the dev. The Assault squads can even break into tank cracking. The dreadnaughts can do their job with whatever they get.

I'm beginning to think there's a point at which foot marines breaks the game. Double tap range gets scary, and they can spread out so much that even pieplates don't really scare them... mostly because in most cases, 1 marine can still do the job of 10 when dealing with mech.

sourclams wrote:You need Stubborn or Fearless army-wide in order to make it work.

Another option : Marneus Calgar

While he is on the table, you can choose to pass or fail all morale checks you are required to make. This is actually better than fearless, as if you lose an assault by 8, you can still choose to pass (even though you needed a 2 to pass)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ragnar4 wrote:I'm beginning to think there's a point at which foot marines breaks the game. Double tap range gets scary, and they can spread out so much that even pieplates don't really scare them... mostly because in most cases, 1 marine can still do the job of 10 when dealing with mech.

The trick is that its hard to kill that many MEQ in 5-7 turns. The volume of fire they can output is moderate at best, but their ability to survive makes it hard to discount them.

Here are some quick thoughts as to what I would drop in a 1750 game. You can get 71 models on the table for that many points. Combat squad them in non-KP missions and there are just a lot of weak targets to hit, especially if you've gone to ground on every objective.
Marius Calgar : 250
Sternguard Squad : 250
Sternguard Squad : 250
Tac Squad (ML, MG) : 175
Tac Squad (ML, MG) : 175
Tac Squad (ML, MG) : 175
Tac Squad (ML, MG) : 175
Dev Squad (4 ML) : 150
Dev Squad (4 ML) : 150

I don't know if thats the worst list ever thought up, but it would be worth a shot to see if it was just to hard to kill.

Not a bad analysis labmouse. I think your list might be better served with 6 tac squads and 3 dev squads, but the sternguard would come in handy.

The problem is that the tac marines could get in real trouble if they got in cc. Not that they would get swept off the board, but the fact that they just suck in cc.

Oh yea, they suck hard in CC. The idea is that it would take most armies a long time to kill that many T4 3+ armor save models.
The goal is just to sit on more objectives than your opponent does.

Codex Marines with Lysander for stubborn and bolter drill.

That list labmouse posted obviously sucks in combat, but thats not really an issue as you have combat tactics. You can and should combat squad everything and set up well spaced ranks of guys which can't be multi assaulted easily. If you get in combat you either get completely wiped out (only 5 man units make it more likely) or you combat tactics out and either get away or take enough No Retreat wounds that you die anyway.

This is the main reason you don't take Pedro or Vulkan in this kind of list, doing so can increase your damage output but also forces you to change the way the list plays significantly. If you are Stubborn you have to take some Assault units to countercharge and probably need some power weapons/fists on Sergeants to try and actually win combat. Imo if you wanted to do this kind of in your face horde Marine list then Space Wolves would be a better bet.

Personally I would change the list around a bit, drop the Sternguard (very obvious initial targets without as much ranged threat), take another Devastator squad and boost them all up to full size (so you can combat squad to get 6 units). Calgar is probably too pricey for 1750pts and doesn't really offer that much even at higher levels, you can always choose to fail Ld which is what you will be doing most of the time. A Librarian is far cheaper and gives you an all important psychic hood. If you run 3 ML Devastator units then I would consider taking MM and flamers (you want some horde control in any case) on some of the Tacticals, just move + run Turn 1 and then shoot anything which tries to move into the midfield.

The question is do you want a shooty list, a cc list, a fast list, or a balanced list?

Vanilla probably would need a lot of luck to work all on foot.

a shooty list would prob look like: 2000 points

HQ

Captain
Artificer Armour
Hellfire Rounds
Bolter
Relic Blade
160

Command Squad
x 4 Plasma Guns
175

ELITES

Terminator Squad (5 man)
Cyclone Missile Launcher
230

Terminator Squad (5 man)
Cyclone Missile Launcher
230

Terminator Squad (5 man)
Cyclone Missile Launcher
230

TROOPS

Tactical Squad (10 man)
Power Fist
Combi-Melta
Melta Gun
Teleport Homer
230

Tactical Squad (10 man)
Power Fist
Combi-Melta
Melta Gun
Teleport Homer
230

Tactical Squad (10 man)
Power Fist
Combi-Melta
Melta Gun
215

HEAVY SUPPORT

Devastator Squad (5 man)
x 4 Missile Launchers
150


Devastator Squad (5 man)
x 4 Missile Launchers
150


All tactical squads move then RUN into cover. Command squad has plasma guns for anti-inv saves. Terminators deep strike in.

I think the above list could benefit by tossing in some free missile launchers in the Tac. squads. They're a free way to increase the list's firepower, there's no reason not to take them.

Well you could do that...and every time you need to move the squad the missile launcher would lose a turn of shooting. but yes once the squad got into cover you could have a good solid Str8 missile shot