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Hello all, ive recently just finished my 2000 point space marine army, and while ive only played two games with them the first one I just marginally won then the second i got smashed in, I feel i could use some advice or feed back on how to play my army

just a quick note that while i am looking into getting a storm raven in the near future, due to money limitations i am not able to really purchase anything else other than what i have.

so this is what I run

HQ:
Captain: power sword, storm bolter, artificer armour, melta bombs

Command squad: Company champion, vet with storm shield and power axe, sergeant with lighting claws and vet with power fist
land raider dedicated transport

Vets:
Terminator squad: x6 terminators, 1 assault cannon

Venerable dreadnaught: assault cannon
Drop pod

Dreadnaught: las cannon

Troops:

Tactical squad: plasma gun, missile launcher

Tactical squad: Plasma gun, missile launcher

Scout squad: x4 snipers, 1 missile launcher, homing beacon

Heavy support:

Predator: twin linked las cannon, las cannon sponsons

Devastator squad: x2 las cannons, x2 missile launchers

=2000 (roughly, i haven't got my list on me when i wrote this up, and im still trying to tweak it so this isnt necessarily the end result)

So what ive been doing is charging the command squad with the captain straight up the gut into nice and squishy units or into my enemies warlord with my Land raider mean while it targets enemy vehicles along with my devastators, dreadnaught and predator (I highly value target priority). then drop pod the venerable onto an objective and contest with that in close combat, then deep strike my terminators 6 inches away from my scouts teleport homer. hopefully my scouts can keep units away from the terminators untill they can move by pinning them down. then once again try and contest an objective with the terminators. Then everything else just holds the line and my objectives really haha, so any Info or help you can give me? and while im open to peoples opinion on what units i should take like i said though im a little short on money Thanks everyone

Well, personally I'd switch up your dreads. I find a ven to be much better as the sniper role than the normal dread. I'm hoping you're adding a missile launcher to that las, as really the ccw does nothing paired with the las.

The dropping dread is an example of where you could use more target flexibility. This is a dude who can be anywhere threatening anybody-you want to arm him open- ended. I tend to like the loadout as Multimelta-ccw with heavy flamer in a pod. This means he can drop and either waste something cowering in cover or blast the back armor of a tank, whichever giving you trouble. Then next turn you've got a handy dandy close combat wrecking ball in your opponents backfield.

The predator, I've found, works really quite well with the regular turret with las sponsons. I've got mine rigged to swap out, but with 6th Ed's dawn of the hull points that autocannon's got a lot of flexibility to it, wheras you're paying a whole lot more for that one las shot.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also let me just add that you've got a whole mess of anti armor in there. You'll waste every tank turn one, and I don't know what you usually play against but when someone shows up with 200+ shoota boyz ready to say hello, or tervigons with a whole passal of bouncing babies, you're going to be wishing you brought a bit more dakka.

Maybe some of those rawket lawnchairs could be "specially modified cluster shenanigan rocket" heavy bolters. Ain't nothing wrong with tweaking WYSIWYG.

I would personally say more troop choices 3 at 2000 points is too low for my liking I would say take 1 troop per 500 points especially since 5/6 missions are objectives of some variety. Add another tactical squad is my recomendation.

I would personally drop the one dread that is las cannon to change for another troops choice. Then change the other dread from assault cannon to multi Melta so you can pop some tanks.

The Vet's power axe is pretty much worthless so I would either change it out for a sword, to get full use of the I4, or a hammer to get S8. The hammer and the axe are both going to strike at I1 better of with S8.

I'm not sure how many points are left after these changes, I play DA, but if you have the points. An agies line for the dev squad would do you well. Te Serg. fires the quad gun while the dev squad is firing thief weapons, great way to make use of him.

Assuming nilla marines, don't think you can take the storm raven. Storm Talon thought, is a nilla marine choice.

I would really consider rearming your HQ with a Hellfire bolter and relic blade. Should run about the same cost and be more likely to wound and hit hard in CC with S6

A few general tips:

- As the Scotsman said, your list is really heavily focused on anti-armor, with lots of lascannons and missile launchers and no way to deal with large hordes. Particularly at 2000 points, your list needs to be able to deal with a variety of targets.

- With hull points in 6th, dreads are of questionable value unless they're being dropped in. They're too fragile otherwise. Venerable Dreadnoughts, on the other hand, are now not worth the points in any situation, ever. Hull points and the change to glancing hits render their "re-roll damage" ability close to worthless, and 60 extra points for +1 WS and BS is just not worth it. I would think about turning your venerable dreadnought into a regular dreadnought.

I wager the command squad can not have a land raider as DT, though you probably want it as a heavy choice.

Your list does not have so much synergy and no balance.
What I mean is the following:
Your raider rushes forward alone. Nothing really directly supports it and it doesn't really support anything, this I would call synergy. This means if the enemy can deal with a single piece av14 and slow infantry then the enemy will have fun, which for me is balance.

Firstly you'll want a better list, which can really deals with variety of threats and works well together.

In general marine units can do everything fairly well. For me this leads to vanilla marines need to choose their tactic against the enemy. This will be shooting at either rapid fire, just beyond rapid fire or long range, depending on which distance the enemy can not cope with.
Sometimes you'll even want to rush into assault.

Apart from that you should learn that combat tactics is awesome.

I think you could do with 2 razorbacks. This will give you a bit of mech gun that slowly rolls forward.
Captain<librarian
Command squad><assault terminators, apart from when on bikes
Else command squad with 4 plasmaguns >sternguard
I think at high points terminators are not the best unit.
You have to have troops. Transports are really needed for tactical squads.
I would give autocannon/las sponspons, as it is cheaper.
Dev. squads are far too expensive.

Jake, glad to hear you are playing the best codex! Some thoughts.

Captain gets no cc bonus for storm bolter. If your using powersword, drop a bolt and give pistol, otherwise upgrade sword to relic blade and keep storm bolter. This guy is awesome, however, remember he ap3 so if he in raider, suggest you drive away from 2+ models. If the champ takes charllenges he will get hammered, although with luck your capt and rest of unit will prevail.

Alao worth noting no spare bodies in cmd squad to take wounds. Thus charging into overwatch can hurt. For this reason im mot a great fan of cmd squads.

Term squad, gold, amazing. But how synergise with your assaulting elements? They plodding so while their shooting is excellent, you are not really going to optimise bang for buck from these guys. A locator on the pod, and libby with gate, would fix this.

Dreads are vulnerable. Dropping the ven in turn 1 he is going to get hammered. If you want to get in the opponents face you need overwhelmingly get in their face. 20 sternguard and a dred, not single dred with landraider still 12 away. I would hold this gupy back and play more shooty.

Rest is good although lascannons on devs a little rich in pricing, better to take 15 pt weapons and fill that way.

thanks for the help everyone, ive got some good points jotted down for ideas from a bit of everyones advice. Thanks guys really appreciate it