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Hi All,

I'm planning to start marines for the first time ever and wanted to use normal marines and make my own chapter, not using any cheesy rules or codexes like blood angels or space wolves. I wanted to avoid being rail-roaded into the whole 3x 5missilefang lists, etc... I do however love forgeworld, and my local store is always happy for forgeworld models to be used, as long as they have the WH40K stamp in the imperial armour books. So here it is.

I'd love some feedback to this, is it a strong list, can it compete with other lists? My local area does have quite a few "Typical internet lists" like Draigowing, venomspamdeldar, black templar mech spam, etc... and 150+ tyranid/orc lists.

HQ
Librarian + Terminator armour with storm shield - Nullzone + Vortex of doom

Elites
5x Assault Terminators, 3x Storm and thunder hammers, 2x twin lightning claws
5x Assault Terminators, 3x Storm and thunder hammers, 2x twin lightning claws (split in 2 squads to get an extra sergeant)
1x Siege Dreadnaught with Flamestorm cannon

Troops
10x Tactical Marines + Plasma Cannon + Meltagun + Combi-melta
10x Tactical Marines + Plasma Cannon + Meltagun + Combi-melta + Rhino
10x Scouts + 10xCamo cloaks, 4 snipers, 1 missile launcher, 5 melee weapons

Fast Attack
1x Caestus Assault Ram
1x Caestus Assault Ram
1x Lucius Assault Pattern Dreadnaught Drop-Pod

Heavy
1x Deathwind Drop-Pod
1x Deathwind Drop-pod


For those who don't know the FW rules i'll briefly outline them here, hopefully without breaking any rules.

Caestus Ram - Land raider that flies, (13 armour), has 4x large template one use missiles and a large template MELTA gun, terminators can assault from it, and can carry more than 5 term armoured bodies. Also has 5++ to any damage hitting front armour.

Siege Dred - Dred with +d6 to penetrate and a str6ap3 flamer. (and a 2nd heavy flamer), if it pens but fails to destroy, any units inside all take a heavy flamer hit.
Lucius assault pattern drop - Drop pod for dreadnaught that you can assault out of first turn.

Deathwind drops - Drop pods with whirlwind missile launchers in them, when they first drop they fire d3 large templates at EVERY unit within 12", friend or foe. After that they only fire once per turn, but you choose who and where.


Basic Strategy

Every 10 man unit splits into combat squads, scouts infiltrate to distract people, if shot at G2G for 2++ to waste the enemy's time. Tactical marines spread out to take objectives while one mobile melta squad uses rhino to scout ahead. If i get 1st turn I send the siege dread podding next to a priority tank and pretty much 100% kill it. If I get 2nd turn the siege dread waits, and instead the deathstorms go down to thin some ranks and distract the enemy. Meanwhile the terminator squads split up and hop in a Caestus each, one with the libby, to go hunt. Any nasty shenningans like a Drago wing will be Magna-melta killed by the rams, before the terminators pop out. Nullzone is used 90% of the time, while the vortex is there just in case... or if a nasty tank pops up. I feel the combination of nullzone and 2x str8ap1 large blasts should deal with any deathstars easily enough. The 8 missile blasts can clean some hordes up too.

Basically im going for a shock and awe distraction army. Start of the game im in your face, scouts shooting from close by, melee scouts running close.. a dread has dropped and assaulted you from behind and a missile drop-pod is firing away, two fliers with assault terms are running in at a 36 inch turbo boost... My tac marines will probably go completely ignored, and im hoping to pin the enemy in and utterly maul them. If they survive, they'll be so weakened that my tac marines should be able to mop up. IF they survive.

Second ideas are that should i consider dropping the 3rd tac unit, (id still havd 4 SMU units...) and have a chapter master kitted out? Would mean another str10ap1 large blast, and another terminator guy to run in the 2nd Caestus.

If Forgeworld is welcome in your local store, then this looks pretty good to me.

I know that around here, if someone showed up with that kind of list, people would cry foul. Flying land raiders and super-ironclad dreads assaulting first turn completely turns the game on its head.

Two points.
The first is, close combat scout squads are not all that great IMHO.
Also, the librarian's power null zone isn't that great unless your versing demons IMHO.
Other than that, awesome list.

@ Emperor Awfulness - That's weird, I'm not sure if its the competetive nature of our different countries. Here in the UK, forgeworld models are quite common in games, and we're more excited to play against them. After all, it get's boring playing the same re-hashed tournament lists all the time, it's fun to play something off the wall and weird. That said, most places do kinda demand it has the WH40k stamp, and not "Experimental rules." - I've been blasted apart by my fair share of crazy fliers, crazy tau vehicles and unusual special characters.

In the end, they're rule tested by GW, and if you have the money to pay more... well...

I'm sure official tournaments might not allow them, Then again, i'm not sure, i've only played in casual and store-run tourneys.

In Australia, from what Iv'e seen, in casual play, if your opponent agrees, your allowed. In tournament play, usually not though there are a few exceptions. It all depends on who you playing against.

I would like to fight that list..as long as i could use my FW vultures...lol

According to forgeworld 1.3 updates, it's legit lol. Just that in normal games the Vulture doesn't have the "Flier" rule, an is instead a skimmer, like a valkyrie.

Not sure how bombs work, but then tyranid's have a bombing unit in normal wh40k... just drops a template over any unit it has passed over in it's move.

BaneGuard wrote:Also, the librarian's power null zone isn't that great unless your versing demons IMHO.

With the release of the GK codex, Deathwing and even Loganwing, Null zone is a great utility power to help combat terminator heavy armies. I usually take it and have great success.