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Im gearing up for more tanks - they are gold! Heavy fire, good damage soaking capabilitiy and mobility. Yes they are vulnerable to melta but everything has a vulnerability to something.

So im now tossing up including a techmarine.

Here is the base list

Headquarters
Librarian (Null Zone, Avenger) 100

Elite
5 Assault Terminators 5 Thunder Hammer Storm Shields 200
Land Raider 260

Troops
10 Tacticals Combiflamer, Powerfist, Flamer, Heavy Bolter 205

10 Tacticals Flamer, Plasma Cannon 175
Razorback Twinlinked Heavy Bolters 40

Fast Attack
2x Land Speeder Squadron Heavy Flamer, Multimelta 140

2x Land Speeder Squadron Heavy Flamer, Multimelta 140

Vindicator Dozer Blade 120

Vindicator Dozer Blade 120

Land Raider 250

Total 1750

So to get a techmarine in there (and a servitor, for the 3+ repair and to take a heavy shot for the boss in KP mission), here is the adjusted list

Headquarters
Librarian (Null Zone, Avenger) 100

Elite
6 Assault Terminators 6 Thunder Hammer Storm Shields 240
Land Raider Multimelta 260

Techmarine Servo Harness, Servitor 85

Troops
10 Tacticals Combiflamer, Powerfist, Flamer, Heavy Bolter 205

10 Tacticals Flamer, Plasma Cannon 190
Razorback Twinlinked Heavy Bolters 40

Fast Attack
2x Land Speeder Squadron Heavy Flamer, Multimelta 140

Heavy Support
Vindicator Dozer Blade 120

Vindicator Dozer Blade 120

Land Raider 250

Total 1750

In the second list I lose the second 2 MM/HF speeders, which are really great as Heav Tank / Anti Horde control and instead get another terminator (nice) the tech and his brainless assistant.

So here are the pros

1. Those vindis are one weapon destroyed away from losing their combat power, a major part of my anti FNP/2+ capabilities - well now they get 3+ chance at their weapon back
2. He jumps in with the tacs into second raider - they are a light infantry combat team thats now pretty good, flamer, combiflamer, pistols from the tacs and the flamer and TL plasma from the tech is a fair bit of frying pre charge, then there is the fist on SGT (3 attacks), the 2 fist attacks from the Tech's servo harness and 1 from the zombie.
3. Libby is very vulnerable, this puts him in the razorback where he focuses on staying alive - null zone major reason I have him, closely followed by psychic hood. For very light anti armour jobs, like 5 scouts and equiv, they can jump out and with a flamer, bolters and avenger do some damage.
4. A 6th terminator is massive, I often lose 2 or even 3 before I strike back, so that little bit more combat power (3x St8 hammer attacks on the charge) is a huge boost.

Cons of this are

1. the loss of the speeders, which not only removes their bolster the remaining squadron but allows more focused fire on my remaining armour
2. techmarine is a potential easy kill point

So pls share your views. What am I missing here and whats your view on the right approach?

Techmarines are never taken by serious players, save a few exceptions:

Thunderfire cannon
MOTF for a dreadnought list, on a bike with conversion beamer possibly.

So, no, don't take a techmarines. If you get an immobilized or weapon destroyed on one of your tanks, suck it up and finish the game with what you have left. Games are way to short for a techmarine to be running around repairing stuff. I used to run techmarines when I was a noob, and they did not perform whatsoever.


I do suggest you run 3 MM/HF speeders separately. MM/HF speeders are suicide units and generally work better alone. This gives you some spare points to throw around. I would like to see your Librarian in Terminator armor and a storm shield if he is your primary HQ at 1750pts. A power armor librarian is too much of a pushover.

If you are really willing to switch up some models, you could keep the Librarian in power armor, drop the second land raider instead taking a rhino, and get a Vulkan He'stan counts as that will really help out your army.

I agree with the above: Tech Marines aren't worth their points, but a MotF on the other hand...

Good points, thank you. I ran 3 LS singly in last tournament. The benefit of squadron is massive and the easy KP for opponent one to avoid again.

Appreciate how good Vulkan is, I really do, but he is in his part of the Salamanders universe, and Aurora is somewhere completely different. Ie want to avoid named characters.

Term lib sure however again last tournament he dismounted from raider once, when all going DE pear shaped. He not going into battle if I can help it. Think those 40 pts on a 6th TH far better investment.

Loricatus Aurora wrote:
Term lib sure however again last tournament he dismounted from raider once, when all going DE pear shaped. He not going into battle if I can help it. Think those 40 pts on a 6th TH far better investment.

With just 40 points you can make your librarian twice as immune from non AP weapons, and gives you a 66% chance to stop AP weapons instead of 0% chance. This is protection on your vital Null Zone and Psychic hood. Power armor Libbys are so incredibly easy to kill. Just because you are avoiding combat, doesnt mean people will try to force it on you.

I hear you howver in 5 games I got into combat once with the libby - DE were swarming over me and had just haywire grenaded my land raider to death.
My libby cast null zone then charged the archon and witches with his hammer guard. Yes he survived the archon's soul trapping attacks, then he dealt nothing back and the hammers practically fell over, they rolled 3x 1s in 4 saves. So I think it must have been the woeful example of the librarian as they usually would have smashed everything.

So im going to pull the libby from the raider, stick him with a combat squad in the razor and keep them all out of harms way. If they get into close combat then the battle is going pear shaped anyway, thus better to use 40 available points on another hammernator. They have a mean looking SGT to lead them and he will do a better job than a soft libby.

I run 12 tanks in my guard army in the large games against my regular opponent. x1 manticore x2 LMBT x2 Demolishers X1 Executioner x3 Hellhounds x3 chimera. Theres also a vendetta and three armoured sentinels. Needless to say these games touch 5k of points. Even then the guards Tech priest rarely makes any impact on the game. The main downside is getting him to the damaged vehicle in time. I tried to get around it by giving him one of the chimeras and keeping the vehicles closer together. He has a bit more of an impact but when you take into account the cost. What was going to be a cheap add on now costs as much as one of the tanks i'm trying to repair. So is it better to take another tank and get the extra firepower or to take the priest and keep the others going for a few turns longer?

I don't advise tech priest even in mech lists and I bought two of them with the servitors. Display model.

That's great feedback Deceiver, thanks

Also as for your squadron of speeders it's a bad idea if your opponent rolls a 3+ on a pen it's a wreaked unit. Do to the squadron special rule all immobilized units =wreaked and it's open toped so it gets +1 then if it's an ap1 weapon lol it wreaks you on a 2+ it sucks horribly. It's better to drop them into 3 separate units unless your planing on runing more then 4 do 1 squad of 2 then 2 squads of 1.

Im thinking with the speeders if I move flat out turn 1 and they shoot heavy weapons at them that is fine with me, means vindicators are left alone - sure have a go with my 3++ cover, if you take down 70 points you have my blessing, if you miss the shot is wasted and your eating multimelta within 12 next turn

these guys epitomise suicide other than against horde when they become critical to burn out great swathes of little bugs and smelly greenskins

there 4 heavy flamers that are highly mobile then get hit on assault on 6 and can fly off if they survive and do it again are just brilliant

if I knew I was going to only face mech the speeders would be out of the list, there are better ways of delivering melta in the marine codex IMO, however here they are a very credible threat so if they draw krak missiles, lascannons, and even prism cannon shots, im cheering.

cannot wait to that perfect game where I get 10 stealers outflank then they get bathes in super heated promethium from 4 speeders and get incinerated into nothing

I would look back on that moment forever and smile

Land Speeders are not opened topped, therefore wrecked on a 4+. It doesn't really matter though, because an immobilized HF/MM speeder is a useless, might-as-well-be-dead speeder anyways.

There are advantages to the squadron rules:

- You can get more then 3 land speeders in your army.

- You get free extra armor, therefore are always mobile no matter what (for a MM/HF speeder, a stun result is a death sentence).

- The ability to allocate damage, putting all the results on one speeder, and leaving the other completely unharmed.

Speeders also do not get a 3+ cover save when moving flat out. Bikes get a 3+ cover save when turbo boosting, but Fast skimmers moving flat out get a 4+ obscured save.

Ah, thanks Scupasteve on the 4++

Not being open topped is good, the scout one is open topped so the little ones can get stuck in straight away

I regretted having single speeders in my last tourney, but thinking 1 unit of 2 now rather than 2 of 2. Taking the 140 points for a terminator chappy for the TH team instead, means 75% hit probability with those hammers rather than 50%, which is great when you have lost one or two and you really need to squish something

On the Techmarine:

generally speaking, against tanks people either will want to Stun it or Wreck/Explode it. Most of the time A Weapon destroyed or Immobilized result is one of the worst things you can get against a Vehicle.

Example: Killing the Storm Bolter on a Rhino, Immobilizing a Predator.

A common piece of adive you will see is "Stun a vehicle, then move on to the next one".


A techmarine does nothing to help vehicles avoid Stunned, Wrecked, or Explode results on the damage table.

They are okay with the thunderfire canon, because the canon is good. The MotF is good, because it opens up the elite slot where a lot of good units are. Both of these guys pair well with a unit of scouts with stealth (either with Telion or cloaks) for that 2+ cover save. Taking a techmarine just to fix stuff is not going to be worth it.