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Longtime Space Ork player here, looking to play Codex Space Marines in Sixth Edition. I have a absurd theme -- Space Bunnies -- based on "Watership Down," Bugsy Bunny, and the Easter Bunny. I have eighty shoulder pads for grimdark hilarity. I've been doing list writing to plan out my model conversions in the last few weeks, but am so so ignorant how Space Marines really work.

Question: Do either Fleet (conferred by Shrike) or Stealth (conferred by Badab War CM Lias Issodon) really benefit Codex Space Marines? Thematically, I like both USRs; rabbits are fast (fleet) and they hide (stealth).

I don't want much in the way of drop pods or vehicles, but rather lots of infantry, some jump infantry, maybe some bikes.

Looking forward to your thoughts.

Wouldn't plain ole combat tactics fit rabbits pretty well? Combat Tactics seems pretty bugs bunny-ish to me.

As far as the actual query both are useful. I think stealth is better all around for marines in that just about any squad you have will make use of it. Vanilla marines only have a few units that really leverage fleet and of those only assault terminators are top tier.

If it were me I'd save my points and just use combat tactics.

Stealth will be more universally useful then Fleet, more useful for a shooty army.

Combat Tactics is amazing when used properly though.

 winterman wrote:
Wouldn't plain ole combat tactics fit rabbits pretty well? Combat Tactics seems pretty bugs bunny-ish to me.

Hmm, that's true, or it could be finessed.

So its going to be tac heavy? Ie horde marines? Ie breed like rabbits?

A list featuring lots of tacs is quite challenging.

I would like a lot of tactical squads. As an Ork player, the price of troops is pretty high!

Either rule can help, but it really depends on what list you use. Stealth is good for an army that has lots of static, long range shooting. If you are doing an assault army with lots of jump marines, fleet can really help get into combat. All in all though, I would advice for sticking with the good old combat tactics.

Fleet is pretty questionable, you aren't going to be assaulting very much with marines, and usually combat tactics is better to get you out of combat ASAP and let you start shooting again.

Stealth is awesome, it gives you a lot more durability against the usual anti-marine weapons as long as you're willing to stay near cover and shoot (and marines want to shoot). Add in the character's other abilities and it's a pretty good deal.

So in the end it depends on what you're facing. If you expect to get charged early and often combat tactics can save you. If you expect to get shot at and rarely charged stealth is obviously the better choice. So do your opponents play BA or Tau?

Armadeus wrote:
Stealth is good for an army that has lots of shooting units, especially sniper scouts, as if you field enough, the cost you save in camo cloaks can help negate the cost of the HQ.

Note that now the cloaks give you +1 cover save, NOT stealth. So if you get stealth it will stack giving you a total of +2 to your cover save.

Thanks, I had forgotten that,

The change to the scout rules PLUS CT: Stealth from Lias is pretty awesome. I do hate the models though....

Stealth is a much greater benefit than fleet to Tac marines. Stealth gives you a 4+ against plasma in cover- Suddenly your survival rate went from 33% to 50%. Fleet means you are charging into combat, where you want to use combat tactics to draw the enemy out of cover and shoot them the next turn but you...don't...have combat tactics...anymore...hmmmmmm.


Stealth, stealth, stealth all the way.