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Hey guys

About to play a 500 point game against Dark Angels, my list so far is roughly

HQ - Primaris Psyker (70)

Troops - Penal Legion troopers x 2 (160)

Elites - Storm Troopers w/2x Melta guns x2 (210)

Chimera (55)

Total = (495)

I was thinking about switching the Penal Legionnaires to Veterans, would they be more effective? how should i kit them out against a guy who plays 2 Rhinos with marines inside? I was thinking about putting the a Storm Trooper unit into the Chimera and rushing up to the Rhinos and dissolving them with melta guns. The Penal Legion would be meat shields, but would Veterans with heavy weapons be more effective?

I've never played a game before and this is just for fun, but what's the best route to take? i have any number of Guard units at my disposal ([i work for a independent GW retailer] just not the massive things like Valkyries and Medusas etc) so i can buy anything you guys suggest. I could really do with some help and ideas for beating these Dark Angels at 500 points. Thanks guys!

I think against Marines you will need more firepower. I like Penal Legionaires, but I think you would be better off with some veterans because you need some heavy/special weapons in here.

You may want to consider Storm Troopers with plasma guns as well -- the heavy weapons with the vets can open up the rhinos and then the storm troopers can rapid-fire the marines inside to death with their plasmas and hotshot lasguns. Take the "Behind Enemy Lines" or "Reconnaisance" special ops to make sure you are close enough.

To that end, I would recommend a Company Command Squad with lascannon instead of the Primaris Psyker (basically same price). The lone Chimera doesn't really fit in with the rest of the list, I'm not sure what it would do other than sit there (perhaps provide armour for one of the vets). Not sure what you could replace it with though ...

Right, giving the Storm Troopers plasma guns to deal with marines and a Heavy Weapon squad in the HQ to take on the Rhinos, gotcha. What type of heavy weapons do you recommend for the veteran squads? Autocannons?

Autocannons are pretty good at taking out rhinos, so they're definitely not a bad buy for the veterans. You'll want to pair them up with some special weapons -- remember that the veterans can take three of those per squad. At 500 pts you may want to keep it cheap and 3x grenade launchers plus an autocannon could be quite effective for popping those rhinos to give your storm troopers targets well-suited to their weaponry.

Also, remember that the Company Commander can issue the "bring it down" order to twin-link his own lascannon and/or veteran autocannons and grenade launchers.

Okay, command squad in, and two veteran squads with autocannons for sure. How effective are sniper rifles against marines? i'v got loads of them built and it would shave me some time building all of this if they were in the veteran squads. They'd be cheap to and allow me to stay at distance. I mean, putting Space Marines to ground would allow me to keep the long range fire on if they ever get out of their rhinos... but i expect them have some kind of rule that allows them to pass automatically or something...

I don't know -- I've only had limited use of sniper rifles. They will be useless against the marines while they are still inside their rhinos, that's for sure, and if the game plan is to use the autocannons to open up the rhinos, I don't think you'd get much use of the snipers.

Snipers are more meant for monsterous creatures; things like wraithlords, dreadknights, carnifexes, with very high toughness stats, since the sniper rifle always wounds on 4+ no matter what it's shooting at. On a marine, that's only marginally better than plain lasguns (wounding on 5+) whereas grenade launchers with krak grenades are wounding on 2+ and can damage the rhinos, too.

Don't take autocannons, take plasma. Both get 2 shots at S7, but only the plasma gun has AP.

Never take heavy weapons in a veteran squad. Put them in a chimera (always) and make sure you're moving them. The range and target priorities are too different between autocannons and plasma guns.

That said, with BS4 veterans I think it's a crime against the Emperor to give them anything besides 3 plasmas or 3 meltas. Forget sniper/GL/flamer. One thing I've seen done that works really well (for cheap) is give all the Vets in your command squad flamers (for 4 flamers) and stick them in a chimera. Just run that bad boy next to any infantry squad and watch them melt (usually for a full strength squad we're talking about 40 hits, and making them take 20 saves). Absolutely nasty.

Also, avoid penal legion squads I'd say. You could get way better things for the points. And Primaris Psykers are the worst things in the IG codex, IMHO.

Belerephon wrote:Never take heavy weapons in a veteran squad. Put them in a chimera (always) and make sure you're moving them. The range and target priorities are too different between autocannons and plasma guns.

That said, with BS4 veterans I think it's a crime against the Emperor to give them anything besides 3 plasmas or 3 meltas. Forget sniper/GL/flamer. One thing I've seen done that works really well (for cheap) is give all the Vets in your command squad flamers (for 4 flamers) and stick them in a chimera. Just run that bad boy next to any infantry squad and watch them melt (usually for a full strength squad we're talking about 40 hits, and making them take 20 saves). Absolutely nasty.

Also, avoid penal legion squads I'd say. You could get way better things for the points. And Primaris Psykers are the worst things in the IG codex, IMHO.

but you're giving BS 4 Vets something other than Plasma/ Melta by doing that with a CCS. i agree completely that's a great idea for a PCS.
and i'll second dumping the Penal troops for Vets.