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I'm sure this has been asked before, but I'll throw it out there. How many basic marines should I have able to field? I'm going through all my old stuff (getting back into 40K) and I have A LOT of marines. I have 3 10 man squads assembled / painted. I also picked up the AoBR and have a 10 man sprue from 3rd edition still in the box. So my question, will I ever really need those, or should I part with them? Seems like I'm going to chew up points on other troops and equipment before I'll get to 4 squads.

I don't think there is a 'set' number. You need a few scoring units, plus more bodies to fill in devastators, etc. I always try to have a mnimum of 3-3500 points in an army. That gives some flexibility when building a list. Ooorrr, you could go to ridiculous extremes like me and have 2 armies over 10,000 pts., another over 8000, and 2 more that are 5000+. Yes, the crackrock flows freely in my miniature buying world... "Ooh, a new tank... So, what harm are 30 Wraithguard anyway...yes, that is 40 Chaos terminators...uh huh, 5 land raiders..." Perhaps a heroine habit would be cheaper?..

You want one troops choice for each 500 points you plan to field. I think you don't need to buy any more tactical Marines for your army right now. You could easily convert up some Sternguard or command squad jockeys with those models though.

Depends on which codex you are running. Anything but vanilla SM I would go with the 1 troop per 500 points minimum, if you ARE however playing vanilla, I would suggest going minimum 2 FOC slots until you reach about 1850-2000 range, and then I would definitely field telion scouts or maybe a third tactical squad.

20 tactical marines in a pair of metal boxes, for objective holding purposes...are pretty frelling durable, particularly with smart use of terrain and transports. On top of that, the 210 points for a rhino + melta gun tac squad buys you a whole lot of things that will be more useful from a standpoint of "Beating the other guys face in" And while yes, this means that you only have 2/4 scoring units, and thus can only claim 2/4 objectives...The rest of your army is driving the other guy off HIS objectives, and at minimum contesting.

I'd say you're good to go, If you already have 30 tacticals, I would say you are golden at least till 2000 points. Take any extras, convert them to sternguard or vanguard, a command squad if field captains. Avoid devastators, if you need further explanation please see my avatar image.

This is, of course, my opinion that's worth precisely as much as you paid for it. My comfort level says that the 20 T4 3+ bodies in boxes will be sufficient in most cases. Some people want a lot more, but I for one noticed that my success on the board started going way up when I stopped spending so much on tactical marines and finding them up against say grey hunters, and instead started hitting grey hunters with an equivalent points value in TH/SS or sternguard.

What do you want?
If you want a small force, you're fine.
Are you planning to build a full company?
If so you'll need a few more.
Personally, I have 3 companies worth of Crimson Fists.

I appreciate the response. Using the models as fillers for other stuff is a good idea. I'll hand on to them, just maybe not assemble them right now. I forgot to mention, I also have two painted units of the 2nd Edition Marines just standing their with their bolder in front of them. I'd prefer not to use them though