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hi dakka,
for a year and a bit I've been playing space marines with the vanilla marine codex. never ever have I won a game, and now I've had enough of it. I can't find out why it doesn't work, and therefore i'm considering to buy a blood angel codex and work it out that way, but that's going to be a expensive way...

so far, I have the following units WYSIWYG:

HQ:
chapter master 223 pts
storm bolter, relic blade, artificer armour, melta bombs, digital weapons, bike

captain 160 pts
relic blade, artificer armour, melta bombs, digital weapons

command squad 260 pts
company standard, company champion, 2 flamers, 3 melta's, 5 power weapons

librarian 140 pts
terminator armour, storm shield

TROOPS:
tactical squad(10 man) 210 pts
missile launcher, plasma pistol, powerfist, flamer

tactical squad(10 man) 215 pts
missile launcher, plasma pistol, powerfist, meltagun

scout squad(5 man) 100 pts
4 snipers, 1 missile launcher, camo cloaks

TRANSPORTS:
razorback 75 pts
assault cannon

rhino 35 pts

ELITES:
assault terminator squad(10 man) 400 pts
5 claws, 5 shield+hammers

dreadnought 145 pts
twinlinked lascannon, missile launcher

FAST ATTACK:
assault squad(5 man) 150 pts
2 plasma pistols, meltabombs, power weapon

scout bike squad(8 bikes) 255 pts
power weapon, melta bombs, locator beacon, grenade launchers, mines

HEAVY SUPPORT:
predator 165 pts
twinlinked lascannon
lascannon sponsons

note: I have two tank models, with them I can make 2 rhino's, 1 razorback and 1 pred, or any combination of that.

my question to you is:

-do you see something missing
-should i include another unit
-what is a good, say 1000 points list?
-should I use another codex?
-what can I do to make them win?

please help me out, I like to play with them but I never win....

Ok you have a good assortment of stuff. You should be winning. Give me an idea of what your lists look like at the point values you play at. Also let me know what enemy units give you the most trouble.

One thing to keep in mind, is that the plasma pistols have a habit of killing off your guys. If you have lost your special weapon guys to these guns, as you should have, consider removing them and using the points elsewhere.

Edit: One note: your command squads apothecary cannot take upgrades, as he's not a veteran. Odd, but trust me, you're not the first person I've seen make this mistake.

I have only been playing for about 8 months now, but I will try to help. Try a Pred with LC sponsons and the autocannon on the turret instead of the trilas. I feel your pain at never winning a game man, my Menoth in Warmachine is the same way. Unless you are hellbent on not having any special characters, maybe consider putting Vulkan if you have the meltas/flamers/hammers available.

If you want to add something, I would suggest a Land Raider (Preferably the Crusader/Redeemer with magnetized sponsons to change between them. If you are unsure as to what land raider you want, I would buy the regular land raider and order the LRC conversion pack from GW or your LGS if they sell it, and magnetize the sponsons $66 for either 1 option or alt between two or $86 for the ability to have all three) I normally see Vanilla Marines run redeemers with 5 man TH/SS squads in them. The assault termies benefit from the transport greatly.

As above, post some lists, the points you normally play at, and what gives you trouble.

Conversion Pack link

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440335a&prodId=prod80002a

Why would you put a melta and flamer, both of which are short ranged assault weapons, in the same squad as a missile launcher, a long ranged heavy weapon?
A waste of points there imo. Go heavy and long range, or assault and short ranged, but not both. Same problem with the Plas pistol. Its a short ranged weapon in a squad that is not intended to be close to the enemy (provided they have a missile launcher)

My advice is to write up a list, and post it on Dakka Dakka in the army list section. That should get you some much more detailed help than here.

First, the ML and Flamer are free weapons. Second, he's most likely looking to Combat Squad away the ML in order to have it fire.

OP: Vanilla Marines are shooty Marines. They're all about the long ranged firepower. Building them for combat beyond TH/SS Termies is a waste of points.

Here's what you need to get:
- Power Armor Librarian
- Rifleman Dread (Convert the Autocannon arms from IG Heavy Weapon Team bits)
- Land Speeders
- More Predators, either Dakka (Autocannon/HB) or Autolas (Autocannon/Las sponsons)

I agree with Ares. I've recently started with Space Marines myself and have been doing pretty well. I think you're sinking alot of points into a limited amount of units. Are your units magnetized? And if not do you have the sprues still? Also, what army/points do you tend to play against?

The Assault Terminators are not actually that useful in a ten-man unit, if you really like them split them up and hide some of them in a Land Raider (Redeemer is probably the best variant).

You've got a horridly disproportionate number of HQ units here, you shouldn't be using more than one HQ unit as Marines until you get up into the 1750-2000 point range. The tricked out Command Squad may look fancy, but at the end of the day you're still blowing 260pts on five guys who are just as durable as any other Marine. If you want them to be remotely effective, trim down the special weapons and give them an Apothecary.

Most of the issues I see here are that you don't have the bodies to back up all the fancy toys. You've got just over 2,500pts here, at that level I usually bring out all four of my Tactical squads in my Dark Angels army.

Check out The Jungle (http://www.fightingtigersofveda.com/), it's got probably the best general guide to vanilla Marines I've ever seen.

Space marines are good for their versatility, but that doesn't mean you can loose focus, which is what looks like is happening. You've got a lot of different types of units doing a lot of different types of things in a lot of different types of ways. This is a pretty common newbie mistake actually. With only one exception you have a 2,500 point marine army with not a SINGLE duplication in unit type. This means you have basically no redundancy whatsoever, which is something that power armor armies already struggle with.

You can certainly make a good space marine list, that gives you the tools to win games, but what you've got needs to be tightened up a lot. You've got to free up points from seriously questionable killing power upgrades (like plasma pistols) to spend on better killing power upgrades (like ditching those missile launchers and flamers for better weapons). Also, you've got units that you're spending WAY too many points on (like terminators and scout bikers), that could desperately be used on units you're not spending enough points on.

More importantly, though, there are two fatal structural errors you have in your list. The first is, as mentioned, you have way too high of a diversity of units. Prune your current list of 13 different units down to 3, which you take several copies of. Not only will this make the list more straightforward to play, but it will also give you more serious benefits like target saturation and redundancy, both of which help with durability and the latter with reliability in killing power.

The second is that you need, need, need, need more troops. Your troops choices are the core of your army. They really need to be their best for you to field anything close to a competitive list. Support units are great, but they are good for just that, and just that only - support. Tac squads, upgraded properly (say, with a multimelta, plasma gun, powerfist and combi-melta, or something) can be a pretty serious threat and mid and mid-long range shooting with enough CC oomph to handle what's left.

Tac squads are tricky to use, though, compared to other troops choices, but you can't be a successful marine commander while fostering an inability to use tac squads effectively. Losing games because you have a toy-heavy list is worthless. Losing games because you're trying to figure out how to use your troops choices is coin paid for future excellence.

In short, bring your list down to a solid, simple, meat-and-potatoes style list, and learn how to use your basic units effectively, and you'll do a lot better going forward.

what I did for my last few battles, was:

HQ librarian as shown above
TROOPS:
2 tac squad with flamer and missile launcher for 170 points each
1 scouts with snipers and cloaks for 100 points
ELITES:
dread as shown above
FAST ATTACK:
assault squad for 100 points
HEAVY SUPPORT:
proxy whirlwind

then I combat squad every thing, so that I get a lot of squads, when the enemy kills one, they have to deal with some more, but they are not that resilient with only 5 man squads....

tomorrow I'll be doing a 1000 pt battle, this time totally different:

HQ khorsarro khan 160
command squad with various upgrades:
meltas, lightnigclaws, powerweapons, apothecary, comp. champion etc. for 190 pt
driving a razorback with assaultcannon for 75

TROOPS
tac squad with melta and lascannon for 185 driving a razorback with lascannon for 75
scouts for 100 pts as usual

HEAVY SUPPORT
2x thunderfire cannon proxy
1000points total

my idea is to let korsarro and his command squad outflank and furious charge, while the rest stays back firing the crap out of everyone. the tac squad I have should combat squad and the squad with a sarge and a melta could drive forward in their razorback to bolter some guys down.

what your idea on this list?

and I was wondering, with all the units you see in my first post, is there a possibility to make a competetive list with them?(no matter what codex)
or would it be a better idea to sell half of it and start over again?

anyway, thanx a lot for your help so far!

As general advice, you want transport for each individual troop choice. You say you have 2 tank models? (1 RB and 1 pred). What i'd consider doing is buying another RB kit soley for the transport. That gives you the option of 2 RB or 2 Rhinos for your chosen 2 troop choices.

On to your troops. The load outs are pretty similar to what i run. I would consider dropping the Plasma Pistol. Like someone said before, they blow up, killing marines and, for 15 points, dont really help when your gonna get charged next turn. As for the ML / Flamer set up, this works well. If you get the additional RB kit, like suggested, you can run flamer, PF and 3 other marines forward in the RB and the ML and 4 marines stay and objective camp. Alternativly, you can sit on a objective in a rhino and shoot out.

As for your HQ, you have nice units, but unfortunatly, they are expensive point wise. Stick with the Librarian at games 1500 points and less. He is a solid choice.

There you have it. The back bone for an army. Your solid HQ choice, your troops and the transport. To progress, consider some predators, using the Auto-las setup. That way, your able to take out tanks and elite infantry with it. Those choices with a scout bike squad, should make up approx 1000 points. Get a few games with that set up, learn the roles various units play in your army and you should be set to advance.

Hope it all works out

A small bit of advice is that ur chapter master on a bike is a terrible waste of points. The main advantage of taking an HQ on bike is to either make bikes troops or to keep up with other bike squads. Seeing as you have no Bike squads (not counting the scouts because it would be a waste to put a chapter master with them) it makes no sense to have him on the bike. Also the storm bolter with the bikes already twin linked bolters seems a small waste of points. I know it is only 3 pts and you garuntee 2 shots at 24" but its still not worth it to me. The bike will give him 1 twin linked shot so it gonna equal about the same chances to inflict wounds. Also if you drop the SB and instead run a BP I believe you will gain an attack in CC, though i could be wrong not entirely sure if the SB counts as a CC weapon. Thats an easy way to save roughly 40 pts right there.

I also want to caution you on your list for your next battle. thats very few troops for a 1000 pt list. I've seen GK lists with more models at that value. Command squads at that low a list is over priced for a unit that is 5 men and not scoring. add in the Razor and Kor'sarro you end up with about half your pts in one placed on the board. Truthfully you may be better off ditching Kor'sarro. In 1000 pts outflank can't be very effective because there aren't enough models on the table to garuntee that you will be able to get at sumthing squishy in the first turn on the board. A captian can be upgraded to be more effective then Kor'sarro. Give the captian a relic blade and artificer armour maybe digital weapons and your actually cheaper an will have a CC monster. Unfortunately you will lose FC and Hit and run but I feel like you may have more success with the captain.

Still if you drop the command squad entirely and bring another set of tac marines in the razor. Combat squad them and bring the forward elements in the Razor to seek objectives, while the HW can sit back on a close objective. The important part is to get more troops on the field. pretty well any game under 1500 pts is generally going to go to the army with more troops.

HumeyKillar wrote:HQ:
chapter master 223 pts
storm bolter, relic blade, artificer armour, melta bombs, digital weapons, bike

Wwwwhhhhhhyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!
You're paying for a bike which gives you twin linked bolters. The difference between that and a SB and the bike is at 12-24" the SB shoots twice, the bolters once with rerolls. At 12", same amount of shots, you can charge afterwards because the bike makes you relentless, but the bolters are twinlinked so they reroll hits- better in 12" than a stormbolter. You are paying for 1 extra shot at 12-24". Do you feel you NEED 2 shots at 12-24", or is 1 twin linked shot at that range good enough for your melee hero?
Also, you are paying extra for the chapter master over a captain, but what do you get?... and orbital? Is a orbital which always scatters that worth it?

HumeyKillar wrote:
captain 160 pts
relic blade, artificer armour, melta bombs, digital weapons

This is much more like it. The only change I would make is dropping digi weapons for a combimelta.

You mentioned you have scouts with snipers and cloaks. What are they going to do, really?
At BS3, they needs 4+ to hit. 50% of them will miss. In a 5 man squad, they statistically get 2.5 hits.
Then, they need a 4+ to wound, 6's to rend. So 50% of rolls will have some effect. So 1.25 wounds, maybe rending.
Your 5 snipers put out 1.25 wounds a turn. ooooohhhh, scary. My Daemon princes are quaking in their boots.

Also, a 10 man assault squad isn't going to do much. Just look at what they do-
they fight in CC with normal CCW's- they hit on their S value.
They have S4- same as a boltgun. Oh wait, a boltgun is AP5 compared to AP nothing.
They have 2 CCW's, meaning they have 2 attacks "base". One more extra attack over a normal marine.
Now, you can have 10 guys run up to a position, flame/plasma/melta some enemies, and put 16 S4 AP5 shots (hitting on 3+) into the enemy.
Or, you can have 10 guys charge into a position, and hit them with 31 S4 attacks that hit based on WS (hitting on 3+ vs GEQ and worse, 4+ vs MEQ's, 5+ vs CC monsters), risking the fact that the enemy might strike first via high initiative, so you lose men in your own turn, and you can lose combat and leg it all kinds of things can go horribly wrong, especially since you've only got PA- no invul saves vs power weapons for you!
Let's compare them to say TH/SS or LC termies- a proper CC unit. Has 2+/5++ or 2+/3++. Everyone has a weapon that ignores armor- either S4 with rerolling wounds ignoring armor, or S8 I1 ignoring armor and auto stunning vehicles/reducing non vehicles to I1 the next assault phase. Hmmmm.
Or Bloodletters- basic daemon troops. Same profile as the marines, but has a 5++ instead of 3+ and WS5. But everyone has a power weapon, and they have furious charge so S5 I5 on the charge. They will butcher Vanilla assault marines.


I would post more but work calls (le sigh). Essentially- Don't buy a blood angels codex. You will get whalloped with Blood angels too. The problem is not the SM codex.

Your two lists you put down are good, slight room for improvements but don't worry about those right now.

My question is what do you fight, and lose against? Is there anything on the field you have trouble dealing with?

You don't need to sell what you have, but you're going to need to buy more to have a competitive marine list. If you're going for foot marines, start with 3 10-man tac squads with proper upgrades and the HQ choice that best supports those units explicitly. Then pick 1 support unit, once again, to explicitly support the specific units you've already taken, and take as many duplicates as you can until you run out of points. Once you can do this at 1,000 points, you can start to talk about running competitive lists at higher points values.