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I apologize in advance for the length of this post.

My barracks currently has 20 Tactical Marines, 5 Assault Marines, and 5 Scout Marines. With one humble Rhino in my vehicle depot.
My Armory is all of the bits and wargear that comes with the battleforce. (1 x ML/Flamer/Plasmagun/Meltagun/PF. 2 x PW. Various PP's/BP's, chainswords, bolters, etc.)

I would like to keep my first force cheap and flexible to allow me to play with different setups and get a better feel for the game before I put down the big bucks to field a proper Battle Company.
As such I ask you to please keep your suggestions to the wargear and Battle Brothers I currently own, if that is possible.

I plan on kitbashing to create both a Librarian and Captain with base wargear as well as turning five Tacticals into Sternguard. I also have the means to kitbash sniper rifles for my scouts. I would like my scouts to be fill a ranged roll and either wield bolters or snipers but I am not sure which would be more effective. Does anyone actually use bolter scouts? With the 6th edition changes are snipers a must have?

I would like to have two different patrol groups in which I can use the two different HQ units with to give me four viable combat forces.

Force Plan:

Combat Patrol One - Footslogging Tactical Patrol

HQ - Either base Captain or Librarian - 100pts

Tactical Marines x 10
Missile Launcher and Flamer - 170pts

Sternguard Marines x 5 - 125pts

Scout Marines x 5
Snipers or Bolters
Heavy Bolter - 85pts

This is 480pts base. The plan would be to use the 20pts to buy upgrades to suit my foe (combi's, meltabombs, etc.). Base tactics would be to have Tac/Stern/HQ advance picking a good route based on terrain and cover and then proceed to bring the pain with the holy bolter and special weapons. If taken, the Captain would soak up wounds, buck rounds, and knock heads when the enemy got too close. If taken, the Librarian would provide GoI mobility should I need to flank or contest an objective, and an offensive punch when expedient (which offensive power do you prefer?). My scouts would set up shop with a good cover save and put rounds downrange forcing the enemy to commit a disproportionate amount of forces should they want to dislodge them. Between my infantry units I can deal with pretty much all comers in the low points realm unless some asshat throws a Landraider or equivalent at me in which case it will be a Machine Curse/Might of the Ancients Librarian going He-man.

The acknowledged weakness of this force is mobility so maybe this would be a force I would use mostly in kill point games, on smaller game tables, or when facing a horde type enemy who will try and close with me.


Combat Patrol Two - Balanced Reconnaissance Force

HQ - Base Captain or Librarian - 100pts

Tactical Marines x 10
Missile Launcher and Flamer - 170pts

Assault Marines x 5 - 100pts

Scouts x 5
Snipers or Bolters
Heavy Bolter - 85pts

Trusty Rhino - 35pts

This is 490pts base, with 10pts of wiggle to adapt to foes encountered. Base tactics would be put the scouts somewhere with good LoS and buck rounds. The Tac squad and its steed rumble to wherever was most advantageous with the Assault element in tow using the Rhino for cover. The Tacs line up and do their thing while the Assault squad blocks LoS with the Rhino and waits to either pounce on a unit weakened by the Tac squad or intercept an enemy that could put the hurt on the Tac squad. If taken, the Captain determinedly trucks along to where he is needed and proceeds to buck rounds and knock heads. If taken, the Librarian ports himself around with GoI and supports the main hardpoint (Tac/Assault squad). The Rhino crew will go GTA (grand theft auto) and ram things indiscriminately should that be to my advantage or funny enough.

My Questions:

So...keeping in mind my preference for infantry tactics and that this is my first attempt at list building...what do you think?
Which Librarian powers would be most useful/effective in the forces I have described?
Are scouts with normal bolters and a HB useful? Does anyone actually use them? Are snipers unquestionably better?

As I mentioned before I am trying to get the most flexibility and battlefield efficiency as I can out of the smallest resource pool while slowly building my Company to strength (with that attitude maybe I should play Crimson Fists, it would certainly be fitting).

I am completely open to any suggestions and tactical advice about the pro's and con's of my lists as well as any suggestions for changes (keeping in mind I'm not looking to spend money adding models at this time).

Thank you for your time, patience with the long post, and input.

For starting lists and tactics, you are doing fine.

At low points, you get a lot of bang for your buck with a librarian. Captains need to grab some wargear before they start to shine. I frequently field a librarian with just his basic gear, even at higher point games. GoI is a solid power. My favorite use of it is porting my sternguard around to bolter things to death with special ammo. I normally pick null zone as a second power, but in your case I'd probably go smite, or one of the other shooty powers. There shouldn't be a lot of invuln saves at low points, and the gear you have is going to let them have armor saves anyway...

I think bolters are the weakest choice a scout can take for weapon options. If you are going to camp on an objective, snipers are better almost all the time. If you are going to deploy aggressively, shotguns or BP/CCW will serve you better. I'm a fan of HBs on scouts, a lot of people like MLs. Both work.

If you are just starting out, and are up to it, magnets are a good investment. You can set up your minis for easy weapon swaps, or jump pack vs foot on the same model. Barring that, you might want to leave the flamer/melta/plasma guns un-glued and use a small bit of poster/sticky tack to keep them in place for the game. Eventually you can just grab a tac squad box for more bodies and glue them all down, but flexibility is nice.

Firstly low point space marines are not fun. Then other marines codices are probably better.

Foot slogging may be ok, but transportation is needed. Help yourself to some rhinos, you'll need multiple ones to keep them alive. Also buy the razorback sets, rather than rhinos, then you probably also want to razorback armies to see which best suits you.

If you do plan to keep away from mech. and keep to vanilla marines I would look at fortifications and scouts.

I am not so sure about assault marines. If they are good it is surely in squads of 10 with some HQ with them, most would go chaplin with jump pack, whereas librarian with jump pack is clearly better.
At the very least bikers seem to do the assault squad but are more flexible.

Snipers are pretty good now. You have plenty of places to bring bolters into a list, so you may as load up on snipers.
Bring Telion and you'll want camo cloaks.

My advice:
Write a 1500 point list, this will give you something to aim for anda direction to move in, low points doesn't really work so well for marines.
Try to think about cool units, then just bring troops that support them.

Both lists are ok. There just isn't much you can bring at low points, otherwise silly armies like scout armies and biker armies do work well at low points.

MFletch wrote:Firstly low point space marines are not fun. Then other marines codices are probably better.

Foot slogging may be ok, but transportation is needed. Help yourself to some rhinos, you'll need multiple ones to keep them alive. Also buy the razorback sets, rather than rhinos, then you probably also want to razorback armies to see which best suits you.

If you do plan to keep away from mech. and keep to vanilla marines I would look at fortifications and scouts.

I am not so sure about assault marines. If they are good it is surely in squads of 10 with some HQ with them, most would go chaplin with jump pack, whereas librarian with jump pack is clearly better.
At the very least bikers seem to do the assault squad but are more flexible.

Snipers are pretty good now. You have plenty of places to bring bolters into a list, so you may as load up on snipers.
Bring Telion and you'll want camo cloaks.

My advice:
Write a 1500 point list, this will give you something to aim for anda direction to move in, low points doesn't really work so well for marines.
Try to think about cool units, then just bring troops that support them.

Both lists are ok. There just isn't much you can bring at low points, otherwise silly armies like scout armies and biker armies do work well at low points.

5 man assault marines work fine. I find that the smaller unit can keep to cover better, so takes less fire getting across the field. 10 man squads have the wounds to take a round of fire in the open and still get the job done when they get to their target. Keep in mind what you are going to be fighting with these guys. Almost every other CC specialist is going to be better then you. Use your assault marines to fight their shooters, and your shooters to kill their CCs. You might not be a match for Death Company assault marines, but you are better in a fight then devastators.

In a small squad of assault marines a librarian might be better. Presumably you are taking buff powers and using him as a beat stick in this role. The advantage of a chaplain is he make the whole squad better at what it does (choppy death). In low points the carnage HQs can personally do is going to overshadow the help the chaplain bring to the squad. In larger point games, where you can give the sergeant some toys, I think the chaplain is going to overshadow the librarian. Re-rolling to hit is very nice.

It's the concept of force multipliers. The assault librarian adds a set amount of damage output to the squad. The chaplain multiplies the damage the squad is doing (and adds a not insignificant amount himself) When you don't have a lot to multiply, the adder is king. But the multiplier synergies better.

It's why I like GoI librarians in my sternguard squad. He's not there for his personal damage output. What he does is make sure that the squad is in optimal firing distance of high priority targets for as much of the game as I can get. He makes them better at what they do.

I like bikes. They got a nice boost in 6th. But the OP wanted to hold back on new minis, and bikes are rather pricy cash-wise.

The idea of having a goal when building/collecting your army is a good one. Think about where you want to go with your army, what you are going to add next. This is extra important if you are painting squad markings on your troops. If the guy with the ML is marked as being a tactical marine in the 2nd squad, you can't just shuffle him off to the devastator squad when you pick up a multimelta marine and want to swap.

Vanilla marines don't have a lot of flex at low point values. It gets better at higher levels. But it just takes so many points to get a viable force on the field with a HQ and two troops.

I appreciate the input guys.

I am leaning towards a base force sword/bolter Librarian as my main HQ and having him roll with my Sternguard in list one or my main troop group on list two. Looking through the codex the Librarian does seem to bring a lot broader range of options at 100pts even if the Captain does have a superior statline. It does seem like the base Captain would be a really tough nut to crack even with base wargear in the low points level with his 5 attacks on the charge, high WS, 3 wounds, and invuln.

Do you think the Captain might be more useful than the librarian against certain enemy armies (especially CC oriented enemies) if I were to put him with my Sternguard and, for example, have the Stern rapid fire a unit, then charge w/ the Captain, then have the Stern charge the following turn? Or simply have the Stern BP then charge with the Captain? Seems like the Captain is unlikely to die in one round, solo or not, and would likely route the enemy after they had been riddled with rapid fire; and with the Sternguard charging with their 15 attacks it seems there would be few enemies that I couldn't sweep away with that combo. Not to mention a full Tactical squad also being nearby.

Would the aforementioned situation be an argument for Captain>Librarian or would a Librarian be able to fill the same roll with his force weapon and an offensive power (smite/avenger).

Also if it helps, I do have an idea of where I'd like to take my army. As I fill to the 750 and then 1000pt marks I would like to get a Devastator squad w/ either 4xML or 2xML/2xPC and make it an 8-10 man squad (depending on the pts I need for the rest of my army) to give it high survivability. As a second HQ I'd like to get a base MotF w/ magnetized conversion beamer and bolster the sniper/devastator ruin for one nasty castle of death. The MotF would either pot shot the CB or use the servo-harness (nasty in its own right) and maybe servitors (they just look cool and have cool fluff) to counter assault any units that wanted to try and CC my Dev/Scout Sniper bastion. The other chunk of my force would be my Tac squad (possibly two) in rhinos with toys (PF's, Meltas, possibly HB/MM for snap shooting while moving), my Assault team (using the rhinos for cover), and my Stern in a razorback with my other HQ (Librarian/Captain from first forces) rolling around and bringing the Emperors righteous wrath to all of the unclean. I think a force like that would make people waste a lot of points on their anti armor capabilities (as all I'd have were transports) and have to think really hard about whether they wanted to commit to blocking my jab (Mobile Tacs/Sterns) or my heavy right hook (Dev/Snipers/MotF). Whichever they choose the other is going to hit them hard.

Also maybe a TL Autocannon dread or TL lascannon dread camping near the MotF bastion for some heavy punch and for the off chance that the MotF could repair them.